GIFT  OF 
.W- 


Hints  to 

Young  Students  of 
Occultism 


BY 
L.  W.  ROGERS 


FOURTH  EDITION 


LOS  ANGELES,  CALIFORNIA 
THE  THEOSOPHICAL  BOOK  CONCERN 

1917 


Copyright  1911 

by 
L.  W«  ROGERS 


PREFACE 

The  growing  interest  in  the  higher 
life,  and  the  general  search  for  infor- 
mation that  is  helpful  in  attaining  it, 
is  sufficient  reason  for  the  publication 
of  this  little  book.  The  purpose  has 
not  been  to  write  of  the  subject  in  hand 
either  exhaustively  or  systematically 
but  to  put  forward  helpful  suggestions 
for  taking  some  easy  steps  in  self- 
development. 

Many  who  earnestly  desire  to  escape 
from  the  bondage  of  the  lower  nature, 
and  rise  to  spiritual  illumination,  are 
at  a  loss  how  to  proceed,  or  even  how 
to  practically  apply  to  daily  life  the 
occult  information  they  may  have 
gained  by  general  reading.  This  little 
volume  is  an  effort  to  assist  them — 
hints  on  how  to  utilize  time  and  energy 
—a  few  guide-boards  in  the  evolu- 


369553 


4          Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

tionary  wilderness  at  doubtful  turns 
in  the  road,  indicating  the  advantage- 
ous way  to  go  and  displaying  warning 
signs  across  some  attractive  by-ways 
that  lead  to  perilous  places. 


Hints  to  Young  Students 
of  Occultism 


CHAPTER  I. 
INTRODUCTORY 

The  young  student  of  occultism — he 
who  is  just  beginning  to  learn  that 
there  is  a  deeper  meaning  in  life  than 
he  had  suspected — who  has  but  re- 
cently come  into  contact  with  Theos- 
ophy's  explanation  of  the  purpose  of 
life  and  the  method  of  human  evolu- 
tion— often  has  the  idea  that  there  is 
some  particular  bit  of  information 
which,  if  he  can  but  secure  it,  will  en- 
able him  to  quickly  develop  clairvoy- 
ance and  rise  into  the  possession  of 
great  spiritual  power.  He  has  an  im- 
pression that  there  are  certain  formu- 


6          Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

las  which  the  teachers  can  hand  over  to 
him,  if  they  will,  that  can  be  used  as  a 
key  to  unlock  the  storehouse  of  occult 
knowledge.  If  the  beginner  would 
make  rapid  progress  in  evolving  the 
divine  powers  within  him  he  should 
put  aside  such  notions  and  realize  at 
once  that  all  any  teacher  can  do  for 
him  is  to  point  out  the  way  in  which 
he  can  help  himself  and  that  knowl- 
edge of  the  path  to  be  followed  will 
come  to  him  in  exact  proportion  to  the 
earnestness  of  his  desire  to  find  it.  He 
should  remember,  too,  that  there  are 
precepts  to  practice  as  well  as  knowl- 
edge to  gain.  It  is  extremely  import- 
ant for  him  to  study  the  literature  of 
occultism,  to  read  and  to  learn  all  he 
possibly  can  from  those  who  have  in- 
formation to  impart,  but  something 
more  is  necessary.  As  he  acquires 
these  spiritual  truths  he  must  strive  to 
live  them,  to  shape  his  daily  life  by 
them.  Fortunate  indeed  is  he  who  can 


Introductory  7 

make  his  inner  spiritual  development 
keep  pace  with  his  intellectual  acquire- 
ment of  the  facts.  To  discover  a 
spiritual  truth  and  then  make  no  use 
of  it  in  the  evolution  of  one's  character 
is  quite  as  bad,  if  not  worse,  than 
to  remain  in  ignorance  of  it;  for 
responsibility  is  measured  by  oppor- 
tunity. 

The  idea  that  anybody  can  put  the 
beginner  quickly  into  possession  of 
spiritual  power  is  as  erroneous  as  it 
would  be  to  suppose  that  by  handing 
him  a  diploma  a  university  president 
can  give  a  young  man  an  education. 
This  notion  that  Theosophy  has  occult 
wealth  to  be  handed  over  in  a  lump 
sum — to  be  conferred  instead  of  earned 
— is  usually  accompanied  with  the  de- 
sire to  be  conspicuously  helpful,  to 
quickly  undertake  some  work,  the 
benevolence  of  which  is  at  least 
equaled  by  its  dramatic  method;  to 
become  one  of  the  invisible  helpers 


8          Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

who  has  the  power  to  work  in  his 
astral  body  during  the  hours  when  the 
physical  body  is  asleep.  That  is  a 
most  laudable  ambition  and  a  worthy 
thing  to  attain.  But  the  point  that 
should  be  understood  about  it  is  that 
the  way  to  it  is  through  actual  spiritual 
development  and  not  by  the  immediate 
opening  of  astral  sight.  The  first  step 
toward  being  an  invisible  helper  is  to 
become  a  visible  helper,  to  cultivate  the 
desire  to  help  by  exercising  our  benev- 
olent impulses  on  the  human  beings 
about  us.  When  we  have  actually  be- 
come of  service  on  the  physical  plane, 
when  we  have  utilized  the  opportuni- 
ties of  our  daily  life  to  assist  others, 
and  have  thus  proven  that  the  thing 
we  really  desire  is  to  be  helpful  and 
not  merely  to  possess  occult  power,  we 
shall  have  taken  the  first  necessary  step 
in  the  realization  of  our  ambition. 

If  the  beginner  is  anxious  to  know 
how  rapidly  he  is  getting  on  in  spirit- 


Introductory  9 

ual  development  he  has  only  to  watch 
his  daily  life.  His  first  work  is  to  get 
control  of  his  physical  body  and  make 
it  obey  his  will.  Therefore  if  he  can 
see  that  he  is  growing  less  irritable, 
that  trifling  things  are  losing  their 
power  to  annoy  him,  that  he  is  not  so 
easily  thrown  off  his  balance  as  he  used 
to  be,  he  knows  that  his  will  is  be- 
coming established  in  its  power  to 
direct  the  physical  and  astral  mechan- 
ism through  which  it  functions.  It  is 
always  to  the  little  things,  rather  than 
to  great  events,  that  he  should  look  as 
tests  of  the  new  powers  he  is  develop- 
ing. His  fitness  to  pass  the  portal, 
later  in  his  evolution,  toward  which  he 
is  now  directing  his  first  uncertain 
steps,  is  not  determined  by  one  su- 
preme occasion,  like  an  examination 
for  entering  some  university,  so  much 
as  it  is  being  determined  by  the 
thoughts  and  desires  of  his  daily  life; 
and  it  is  the  little  things,  the  small 


10        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

problems  of  the  daily  life  that  are 
hourly  testing  his  judgment,  his  sin- 
cerity, his  courage  and  his  patience. 
Unless  he  begins  to  be  successful  in 
meeting  these  he  cannot  hope  to  be- 
come even  a  candidate  for  greater  tests 
of  his  powers. 

There  are  many  ways  in  which  the 
young  student  of  occultism  can  begin 
the  cultivation  of  the  character  quali- 
ties he  must  possess  before  he  can  go 
far  in  his  efforts  at  conscious  evolu- 
tion,— scores  of  things  he  can  do  in  the 
line  of  character  building  that  will  lay 
an  enduring  foundation  for  the  spirit- 
ual power  he  would  attain ;  and  let  it 
be  well  understood  that  all  such  work 
done  in  the  beginning  will  save  him 
much  trouble,  and  give  him  great  satis- 
faction, later  on.  The  reward  for  his 
pains  will  be  rich  indeed.  He  who 
erects  a  fine  building  upon  a  weak  and 
illy-constructed  foundation  is  no  more 
foolish  than  he  who  does  careless  work 


Introductory  11 

in  the  foundation  he  lays  for  his  tem- 
ple riot  built  with  hands.  Every  flaw 
in  the  foundation  is  a  menace  for  the 
future;  and  is  not  that  precisely  why 
the  testing  is  so  constant  and  continu- 
ous? The  things  that  ceaselessly  test 
us,  that  sometimes  appear  to  bar  our 
further  progress,  should  be  as  welcome 
as  the  ring  of  the  inspector's  hammer 
on  the  car-wheels  before  one's  train 
leaves  the  station,  or  as  the  test  of 
plumb  and  square  in  the  house- 
builder's  operations. 

SELF  EXAMINATION. 

An  excellent  thing  for  one  to  do 
when  he  is  first  coming  into  a  knowl- 
edge of  Theosophy,  and  is  beginning 
to  seek  the  way  forward  by  its  guiding- 
light,  is  to  ask  himself  in  what  particu- 
lar traits  he  is  lacking  and  then  earn- 
estly set  about  acquiring  them.  It  is 
usually  not  difficult  to  find  some  weak 


12        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

points.  Is  there  sound  moral  courage  ? 
Does  he  ever  fear  to  express  an  opin- 
ion that  he  feels  ought  to  be  expressed, 
but  which  he  knows  to  be  unpopular? 
Is  he  firm  in  defense  of  the  truth,  as 
he  sees  it,  or  does  he  take  refuge  in 
silence  when  he  instinctively  feels  that 
he  should  speak?  Moral  courage  he 
must  have  and  he  should  begin  to  in- 
spect his  daily  conduct  and  seek  to 
strengthen  his  character  in  this  direc- 
tion. And  so  he  may  run  down  the 
scale  of  his  virtues  and  his  frailties, 
critically  examining  each  point,  until 
he  comes  to  things  we  usually  consider 
as  of  no  importance.  Is  he  careless 
about  the  waste  of  time?  Does  he 
realize  the  value  of  every  hour  of  his 
waking  consciousness?  Has  he  begun 
to  understand  the  fact  that  the  average 
man  fritters  away  in  an  aimless  sort 
of  fashion  by  far  the  larger  part  of  his 
physical  lifetime,  and  makes  but  cor- 
respondingly feeble  progress,  instead 


Introductory  13 

of  which  he  could,  if  he  would,  so  use 
that  wasted  time  that  it  would  count 
tremendously  in  quickening  his  evolu- 
tion? If  he  does  understand  that  fact 
he  will  begin  to  take  account  of  his 
waking  hours  and  ask  what  he  has  to 
show  for  them.  He  will  scrupulously 
cultivate  the  habits  of  promptness  and 
punctuality.  If  he  has  an  appointment 
at  a  certain  hour  he  will  not  arrive 
fifteen  minutes  later,  nor  five  minutes 
later.  If  he  has  letters  requiring  re- 
plies he  will  not  permit  them  to  lie 
about  unanswered  awaiting  the  vague 
and  uncertain  time  when  he  happens  to 
feel  like  writing.  Among  his  earliest 
lessons  should  be  this  fact:  that  pro- 
crastination is  not  only  "the  thief  of 
time"  but  also  of  other  people's  time 
and  that  responsibility  for  careless 
conduct  by  no  means  ends  with  his  per- 
sonal loss.  In  many  directions  he  will 
find  opportunities,  if  he  seeks  them,  to 
strengthen  his  character  and  perfect 


14         Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

his  armor  against  the  coming  day  of  a 
mighty  conflict.  Great  things  are  pos- 
sible only  to  strong  souls  and  it  is  from 
the  trivial  events  of  daily  life  that 
strength  is  won.  Until  we  have  be- 
come masters  of  the  little  things  there 
is  nothing  great  awaiting  us. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  AT- 
TENTION 

Perhaps  it  would  be  impossible  to 
exaggerate  the  importance  of  the  thing 
we  call  "attention."  It  should  be 
assiduously  cultivated  in  every  possible 
way.  Whatever  is  being  done  should 
be  done  with  an  undivided  mind, 
whether  it  is  important  or  trivial.  At- 
tention to  the  work  in  hand  is  not  only 
the  first  step  toward  success  with  that 
particular  bit  of  work  but  is  also  a  step 
in  actual  occult  development.  To  study 
a  subject  for  a  half  hour  with  un- 
wavering attention  accomplishes  more 
than  to  follow  it  a  half  day  with  a 
wandering  mind;  and  while  we  are 
thus  gaining  knowledge  rapidly  by  de- 


16        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

terminedly  sustained  attention  we  are 
doing  something  more.  We  are  bring- 
ing the  mind  into  the  particular  condi- 
tion it  must  reach  before  any  marked 
progress  in  occultism  is  possible. 

The  mental  habit  of  most  people  re- 
minds one  of  a  kitten  at  play.  It 
strikes  at  a  swinging  string,  catches  up 
a  bit  of  paper,  leaps  into  the  air  after 
a  fly,  then  darts  into  another  room  to 
dash  from  object  to  object  in  a  new 
field,  all  for  no  other  purpose  than 
because  it  has  nothing  more  serious  in 
life  to  attend  to.  So  it  is  with  the 
wandering  mind.  It  fills  up  the  time 
with  a  multitude  of  trifling  thoughts 
that,  all  summed  up  in  the  end,  amount 
to  simply  nothing.  It  occupies  itself 
with  dreamy  speculations  about  noth- 
ing in  particular,  darts  backward  to 
uselessly  run  over  a  recent  conversa- 
tion, leaps  off  to  review  a  journey 
made  a  week  ago,  dallies  over  a  re- 
membered remark  by  a  friend,  sud- 


Importance  of  Attention  17 

denly  recalls  a  duty  not  discharged, 
forgets  it  the  next  instant  because  a 
carriage  passes  the  window,  and  then 
dashes  off  on  some  entirely  new  round 
of  equally  frivolous  mental  activities 
that  are  as  devoid  of  connection  with 
the  first  set  as  they  are  of  method  or 
purpose. 

Such  a  state  of  mind  belongs  to  that 
period  of  our  existence  when  we  had 
no  knowledge  of  the  purpose  of  life. 
It  is  not  becoming  to  the  student  of 
Theosophy  and  he  should,  without  any 
loss  of  time,  begin  an  earnest  effort  to 
free  himself  from  so  pernicious  a  men- 
tal habit.  A  good  way  to  accomplish 
this  is  to  endeavor  to  keep  the  mind 
steadily  upon  the  work  in  hand, 
whether  it  is  reading,  writing,  talking, 
listening,  or  discharging  some  simple 
duty.  When  it  is  some  pastime  or 
recreation,  to  which  attention  is  turned 
for  rest,  the  mind  should  be  fully  given 
up  to  it  and  kept  entirely  away  from 


18        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

the    work   that   has  been  temporarily 
dropped. 

Attention  is  the  very  gist  of  occult 
progress.  It  is  impossible  to  imagine 
anybody  getting  on  without  acquiring 
it;  and  the  way  to  acquire  it  to  the 
degree  that  makes  it  effective  is  to  keep 
constantly  at  it  in  all  the  little  things 
we  do  until  it  becomes  an  ingrained 
and  deep-seated  habit.  Is  not  atten- 
tion the  very  basis  upon  which  occult 
development  rests  ?  Take  as  an  exam- 
ple telepathy,  with  which  most  people 
have  had  more  or  less  experience. 
You  are  about  to  say  something  when 
your  friend  says  it  for  you.  You  have 
decided  to  move  a  chair  or  open  a  win- 
dow, but  before  you  can  rise  your  com- 
panion requests  you  to  do  that  particu- 
lar thing.  You  have  not  thought  for 
a  week  about  purchasing  a  certain 
needed  article  when  it  comes  into  your 
mind  suddenly,  but  before  your 
thought  can  frame  itself  into  words 


Importance  of  Attention  19 

your  companion  brings  up  the  subject. 
Very  often  you  both  speak  the  same 
words  at  the  same  instant  about  the 
same  thing.  Very  often,  too,  you 
know  precisely  what  another  is  going 
to  say  just  before  he  utters  it.  Now, 
this  occurs  when  the  mind  is  not  dis- 
turbed by  other  thoughts  and  things. 
We  cannot  imagine  a  person  getting 
the  thought  of  another  when  his  own 
mind  is  galloping  about  among  other 
subjects.  How  can  he  get  what  an- 
other is  thinking  when  he  does  not 
even  get  what  he  is  saying?  But  we 
can  imagine  telepathy  being  cultivated 
by  close  and  sympathetic  attention. 
We  can  imagine  a  person  listening  so 
intently  to  another's  conversation  and 
getting  so  completely  into  his  line  of 
thought  that  he  gets  his  ideas  before 
they  are  expressed  in  words.  Such 
centered  and  sustained  attention  neces- 
sarily cultivates  sensitiveness. 

A  very  good  time  for  cultivating  the 


20        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

attention  is  while  listening  to  a  dis- 
course. An  especial  effort  can  be 
made  to  get  every  idea  expressed  by 
the  speaker;  and  if,  as  sometimes  hap- 
pens, the  ideas  are  not  numerous,  to 
give  the  closest  attention  to  all  that 
is  said,  keeping  mental  account  of  the 
points  as  they  are  developed  without 
losing  anything  that  is  being  stated. 
Whether  one  agrees  with  the  speaker 
or  not  should  not  be  permitted  to  im- 
pair the  attention.  In  either  case  the 
mind  should  be  held  unwaveringly 
upon  the  discourse,  so  firmly  and  per- 
sistently that  there  is  no  opportunity 
for  other  things  to  intrude.  If  the 
ideas  come  from  the  speaker  too  slowly 
to  occupy  the  mind  it  can  be  kept  busy 
reviewing  the  points  thus  far  made,  or 
even  in  speculating  upon  what  are 
likely  to  come,  but  in  any  case  it 
should  be  kept  to  the  speaker  and  his 
subject  with  the  greatest  care.  The 
attention  should  not  be  permitted  to 


Importance  of  Attention  21 

fail  from  the  moment  he  rises  until  he 
has  finished.  This  attention  should  be 
absolute.  If  somebody  enters  or  leaves 
the  room  disregard  it.  Try  to  see  noth- 
ing but  the  speaker  and  hear  nothing 
but  his  discourse,  until  it  is  finished. 
If  this  practice  should,  at  first,  prove 
trying  it  need  not  be  continued 
throughout  an  entire  sermon  or  lec- 
ture. But  for  such  length  of  time  as 
may  be  decided  upon  the  attention 
should  be  rigorously  sustained.  If  the 
discourse  is  a  good  one  much  more  will 
thus  be  learned  from  it.  If  it  is  of  the 
order  that  bores  one  it  will  be  robbed 
of  much,  if  not  all,  of  its  oppressive- 
ness; for  when  the  mind  is  concen- 
trated upon  it,  and  busy  speculating 
about  it,  time  does  not  hang  heavily, 
but  passes  without  notice.  An  unfail- 
ing method  of  shortening  the  apparent 
time  of  any  discourse  is  to  concentrate 
the  attention  upon  it. 


22        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 
ORIGINAL  THINKING. 

Another  thing  which  the  young  stu- 
dent should  take  up  is  the  matter  of 
original  thinking.  Naturally  he  will 
read  much  of  occultism  in  the  books 
written  by  occultists,  and  he  will  have 
a  tendency  to  fall  into  their  style  of 
expression.  When  he  prepares  a  paper 
on  a  theosophical  subject  he  will  usu- 
ally find,  upon  critically  examining  his 
work,  that  he  has  set  forth  much  the 
same  points,  in  much  the  same  way, 
with  the  same  degree  of  emphasis  and 
with  the  same  kind  of  illustrations  that 
his  authors  have  used.  Often  he  un- 
consciously falls  into  almost  precisely 
the  same  expressions.  All  this  is  work 
in  an  imitative  rut,  from  which  he 
should  make  a  determined  effort  to  ex- 
tricate himself.  No  matter  how  ad- 
mirable the  work  of  the  teacher  is  the 
student  does  not  desire  to  become 
either  a  copyist  or  a  parrot.  He  does 


Importance  of  Attention  23 

not  want  his  mind  to  get  the  habit  of 
running  only  along  the  grooves  fash- 
ioned by  others  and  then  not  running 
at  all  when  it  reaches  the  end  of  the 
groove.  To  avoid  this  misfortune  he 
should  read  only  for  a  short  time  and 
then  stop  and  ponder  well  the  ideas 
presented.  Let  him  try  to  find  various 
points  of  view  and  see  if  he  cannot 
think  of  something  more  to  be  said  on 
the  matter.  He  can  call  up  in  his  mind 
some  of  his  experiences  that  are  in  line 
with  the  statement  of  principles  given 
and  ponder  over  the  corroboration  thus 
furnished..  When  he  discusses  with 
others  what  he  has  read  let  him  try  to 
avoid  the  exact  language  used  by  the 
author  and  put  the  thought  into  orig- 
inal expressions  of  his  own.  He 
should  endeavor  to  think  out  original 
illustrations  to  illuminate  the  subject, 
and  new  sets  of  circumstances  to  which 
the  principles  stated  will  apply;  and 
the  way  to  do  it  is  to  think,  and  think, 


24        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

and  think,  about  it.  Original  thinking 
is  an  invaluable  accomplishment  and 
the  only  reason  why  there  is  not  more 
of  it  is  because  there  are  so  few  who 
are  willing  to  give  it  the  necessary 
time  and  effort. 


CHAPTER  III. 

PERSISTENT    AND    REGU- 
LAR EFFORT 

Another  matter  which  the  student 
who  is  just  entering  upon  the  study  of 
occultism  should  have  well  settled  in 
his  mind  in  the  beginning  is  the  neces- 
sity for  hard  work.  Whoever  starts 
out  with  the  notion  that  indifferent  and 
desultory  study  of  the  subject  will 
carry  him  through  is  foredoomed  to 
failure;  and  he  who  imagines  that  by 
galloping  through  the  literature  of  oc- 
cultism, as  he  would  read  a  collection 
of  novels,  he  can  become  an  occultist 
will  be  nearly  as  far  from  his  goal 
when  he  finishes  as  when  he  began. 
He  may  give  to  his  occult  studies  much 
time  or  little,  as  he  will.  That  is  not 
the  point.  The  important  thing  is  that 


26         Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

whether  the  period  be  several  hours  a 
day  or  but  one  hour,  or  even  the  half 
of  it,  it  should  be  characterized  by  that 
mental  energy  that  is  the  natural  re- 
sult of  an  eager  desire  and  a  steady 
purpose.  Half-hearted  work  is  but  lit- 
tle better  than  no  work.  Without  hard 
work  the  student's  progress  will  be  dis- 
couragingly  slow.  That  is  true  of  all 
our  undertakings.  Why  should  it  not 
be  true  of  occultism?  The  university 
student  who  makes  rapid  progress  in 
law,  or  medicine,  or  mathematics,  or 
languages,  is  he  who  works  hard. 
Genius  is  only  the  essence  of  hard  la- 
bor. It  may  have  been  performed  in 
a  past  life  but  that  does  not  alter  the 
fact.  We  have  no  faculties  that  we 
have  not  made  and  every  mental  effort 
now  is  determining  our  intellectual  ac- 
complishments of  the  future,  as  well 
as  accelerating  present  progress. 

Not  only  should  we  work  with  wide- 
awake energy  but  we  should  work  with 


Persistent  and  Regular  Effort          27 

persistence  and  regularity  if  we  would 
get  on.  Regularity  has  a  magic  of  its 
own.  A  given  amount  of  energy  put 
forth  regularly,  steadily,  produces 
enormously  more  than  the  same 
amount  of  energy  put  forth  irregu- 
larly, spasmodically.  Let  the  young 
student  set  aside  each  day  a  certain 
time  for  occult  studying  and  thinking, 
and  permit  no  break  in  the  work,  and 
he  will  make  gratifying  progress.  The 
difficulty  of  quickly  getting  down  to 
work  grows  less  and  less.  The  art 
of  becoming  absorbed  in  the  subject 
matter  becomes  easier  and  easier.  Soon 
he  finds  that  his  hour  or  half -hour, 
as  the  case  may  be,  counts  in  results 
out  of  all  proportion  to  the  time  re- 
corded by  the  clock.  But  let  him  make 
the  mistake  of  giving  occult  studies 
two  hours  today,  nothing  tomorrow, 
fifteen  minutes  the  next  day,  nothing 
more  for  a  week,  then  a  full  day  "to 
make  up  for  lost  time,"  with  such 


28        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

future  chance  periods  as  convenience 
may  dictate — make  it  the  sport  of  cir- 
cumstance and  the  dependent  of 
caprice — and  a  sum  total  of  many 
more  hours  will  take  him  a  much  less 
distance  on  his  spiritual  journey.  By 
the  first  method  he  gets  into  the  cur- 
rent of  regularity  and  it  carries  him 
along  with  a  sort  of  cumulative 
momentum.  He  is  really  entering 
upon  a  new  moral  and  intellectual  life 
— acquiring  a  new  viewpoint,  a  new 
standard  of  measures,  setting  up  new 
habits  of  consciousness — and  a  certain 
inertia  has  to  be  overcome.  By  regu- 
larity he  not  only  gets  into  the  new 
stride  quickly  but  does  not  wholly  lose 
it  during  the  intervening  hours;  while 
by  the  second  method  he  not  only  loses 
it  but  loses  most  of  his  study  time  in 
getting  back  to  it.  He  has  the  inertia 
to  overcome  again  and  again  and 
spends  most  of  his  time  making  new 
starts  instead  of  making  progress. 


Persistent  and  Regular  Effort          29 

Regularity  in  the  study  of  occultism 
counts  heavily  for  progress  in  still 
another  way.  Such  study  is  usually 
taken  up  by  the  beginner  after  he  has 
seen  or  heard  something  that  has 
aroused  his  interest  in  the  subject.  It 
may  be  some  occult  experience,  or  a 
conversation  with  a  friend,  or  on  ac- 
count of  psychic  phenomena  in  a  news- 
paper, or  a  lecture  on  Theosophy. 
Something  has  aroused  a  temporary 
interest.  Now,  if  he  sets  out  with  a 
plan  and  purpose  and  decides  in  ad- 
vance that  he  will  follow  a  fixed  pro- 
gram of  daily  study  there  is  a  fair 
chance  that  he  will  acquire  a  perma- 
nent interest  in  the  matter  before  his 
enthusiasm  wanes.  But  if  he  has  no 
prearranged  program,  and  only  decides 
to  utilize  for  such  reading  and  study 
the  idle  time  that  he  may  chance  to 
have  in  the  coming  days,  he  is  ex- 
tremely likely  to  permit  one  thing  after 
another  to  push  aside  his  occult  studies 


30         Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

until  his  interest  slowly  fades  out  and 
his  golden  opportunity  is  gone.  It 
is  a  golden  opportunity  when  any 
human  being  is,  by  any  occurrence 
whatever,  brought  into  contact  with 
occult  teaching;  and  fortunate  indeed 
are  those  who  realize  it  and  promptly 
act  upon  it.  It  may  mean  to  them, 
at  its  very  least,  all  the  difference  there 
is  between  many  happy,  useful  lives 
and  many  very  commonplace  ones,  al- 
though it  may  appear  on  the  surface 
to  be  a  trivial  matter  whether  one  fol- 
lows up  such  an  opportunity  at  once 
or  not.  Trifles  at  the  starting  point 
may  represent  great  differences  fur- 
ther along.  Two  rain-drops  may  fall 
nearly  together  at  the  top  of  a  moun- 
tain range  and  yet,  because  one  strikes 
the  eastern  slope  and  the  other  the 
western,  ultimately  find  their  way  into 
different  oceans.  Those  who  have  a 
fondness  for  such  analysis  have  often 
shown  that  great  events  have  turned 


Persistent  and  Regular  Effort          31 

on  the  pivots  of  trifles.  The  differ- 
ence between  adopting  a  regular  pro- 
gram for  daily  occult1  study  and 
adopting  another  that  is  lawless  and 
erratic  is  one  of  those  apparent  trifles 
that  serves  as  a  pivot  on  which  a  des- 
tiny may  turn. 

ENTHUSIASM. 

Enthusiasm  is  a  thing  of  priceless 
value.  Somebody  has  defined  it  as 
the  power  of  God  made  manifest  in 
a  human  being.  Whatever  else  it  may 
be  it  is  certainly  a  great  motor  power,  < 
a  force  that  carries  one  forward  and 
upward.  The  difference  between  a 
person  filled  with  enthusiasm  about 
occultism  and  another  who  is  not  is 
the  difference  between  life  and  death. 
One  is  asleep  to  everything  but  his 
material  surroundings.  The  other  is 
awake,  aroused,  in  touch  with  the  life 
currents  of  the  universe.  The  chief 


32        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

work  of  the  theosophical  lecturer  is  to 
arouse  such  enthusiasm — to  so  present 
spiritual  facts  to  the  minds  that  can 
receive  them  that  the  recognition  of 
universal  truth  kindles  the  divine  fire 
within.  With  those  who  have  reached 
a  certain  point  in  evolution  this  flame 
of  enthusiasm  will  burn  steadily,  how- 
ever feebly,  and  they  may  fortunately 
walk  in  the  light  for  the  remainder 
of  this  incarnation.  With  many 
others  it  will  slowly  subside,  leaving 
them,  however,  more  susceptible  to 
future  stimuli.  Happy  indeed  is  that 
•  truth  seeker  who  resolves  upon  a  pro- 
gram of  daily  study  and,  while  the 
flame  of  his  new  enthusiasm  still 
burns,  gets  settled  into  the  fixed  habit 
that  will  carry  him  safely  to  the  point 
where  his  temporary  interest  has  be- 
come permanent. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THOUGHT  ASSIMILATION 

IS    ESSENTIAL    TO 

SOUL  GROWTH 

The  student  of  Theosophy  should 
read  much  but  think  more.  He  could 
get  along  without  reading  if  books  on 
occultism  could  not  be  had,  but  he 
could  not  get  on  without  thinking  if  all 
the  books  ever  written  were  at  hand. 
There  is  a  close  analogy  between  the 
growth  of  the  physical  body  and  the 
growth  of  the  soul.  For  the  body  to 
grow  requires  both  eating  and  diges- 
tion. Of  course  there  can  be  no 
bodily  growth  whatever  without  diges- 
tion and  assimilation.  By  digestion 
the  food  is  reduced  to  the  condition 
in  which  it  is  available  for  body  build- 
ing and  by  assimilation  it  is  built  in. 


34        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

And  precisely  so  it  is  with  soul  ex- 
pansion. The  raw  material  of  facts, 
principles  and  experiences  must 
undergo  a  certain  process  before  they 
are  available  for  soul  growth.  Read- 
ing and  observing  are  merely  the  acts 
of  collecting  soul  food.  If  we  do 
nothing  more  it  is  as  though  one  should 
eat  when,  through  some  physiological 
derangement,  the  function  of  digestion 
is  suspended.  There  could  then  be  no 
gain  to  him  from  it  and  no  growth  on 
account  of  it.  The  mind  is  to  the  soul 
what  the  stomach  is  to  the  physical 
body — the  laboratory  of  preparation. 
The  mind  takes  the  accumulation  of 
facts,  principles,  observations  and  ex- 
periences, and  from  the  whole  mass 
extracts  conceptions,  new  views  of 
things,  new  understandings  of  life — 
extracts  the  very  gist  of  the  totality 
of  perception,  and  this  essence  of  the 
whole  is  then  ready  for  assimilation 
by  the  soul,  ready  to  be  built  into  the 


Thought  Assimilation  35 

causal  body.  By  the  action  of  the 
mind  the  rough  material  for  soul 
growth  has  been  transmuted  and  made 
available ;  and  without  such  action  that 
material  in  the  rough  could  no  more 
be  utilized  for  soul  growth  than  fruits 
and  vegetables,  as  such,  can  be  built 
into  the  physical  body.  Mind  action, 
then,  is  not  merely  important ;  it  is  ab- 
solutely necessary. 

Whatever  the  time  may  be  that  one 
can  set  apart  for  occult  studies  each 
day  there  should  be  a  reasonable  por- 
tion of  it  given  up  exclusively  to  quiet 
thought  into  which  no  reading  is  per- 
mitted to  intrude.  It  is  a  common 
error  for  those  just  becoming  inter- 
ested in  Theosophy  to  bury  themselves 
in  some  book  during  every  moment 
that  can  be  snatched  from  pressing 
duties.  This  eager  desire  to  read 
everything  on  the  subject  within  reach 
is  most  commendable  and  the  burning 
zeal  that  grasps  at  every  possible  ac- 


36        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

quisition  foreshadows  rapid  progress; 
but  the  sooner  that  zeal  is  directed  into 
channels  along  which  it  may  make  the 
most  of  the  energy  expended  the  bet- 
ter. To  this  end  a  certain  definite 
time  should  be  determined  upon  for 
quiet  thinking  about  the  higher  life. 
A  half -hour  is  little  enough  but 
twenty,  or  even  ten,  minutes  is  much 
better  than  nothing.  The  hour  at 
which  it  is  desirable  will  naturally  vary 
with  the  habits  and  duties  of  different 
people;  but  it  should  be  at  that  part 
of  the  day  when  there  is  the  most  free- 
dom from  one's  daily  activities  and  the 
least  liability  to  interruption.  Noon 
time  may  be  desirable  for  some.  Early 
twilight  may  be  better  for  others.  The 
hour  of  retiring  for  the  night  will 
probably  be  the  most  convenient  for 
many.  This  time  for  quiet  thought 
should  not  be  made  a  substitute  for 
morning  meditation,  if  the  student  is 
fortunate  enough  to  be  giving  a  few 


Thought  Assimilation  37 

minutes  to  that  shortly  after  rising. 
It  should  be  a  period  of  tranquil  think- 
ing and  aspiration  rather  than  of 
strenuous  will-compelling  mental  ef- 
fort. The  mind  can  dwell  upon  what 
has  been  read  during  the  day  and  the 
facts  and  principles  set  forth  by  the 
author,  or  at  least  some  of  them,  can 
be  recalled,  pondered  over  and  applied 
to  what  one  knows  of  life  through  per- 
sonal experience.  A  part  of  the  time 
can  be  given  to  the  experiences  of 
the  past  twenty- four  hours.  The  mind 
can  run  back  over  the  winding  path 
traversed  during  that  time,  the  people 
met,  the  things  said,  done,  thought  and 
desired,  and  each  can  be  considered 
in  the  light  of  the  higher  life.  Was 
the  conduct  all  that  could  be  desired? 
Was  any  opportunity  to  be  helpful 
overlooked?  Was  any  word  spoken 
that  were  better  unsaid?  Was  any 
thought  entertained  that  should  not 
have  been  harbored?  In  short,  did 


38        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

you  live  up  to  your  highest  aspiration 
or  was  there  a  weak  point  to  be  care- 
fully strengthened  for  the  morrow? 
In  thus  pondering  over  the  reading 
and  the  events  of  the  day,  and  renew- 
ing the  determination  to  live  up  to  the 
highest  one  can  conceive,  the  half  hour 
speeds  swiftly  and  pleasantly  past  and 
by  the  wondrous  alchemy  of  mental 
action  experience  is  transmuted  into 
spiritual  strength. 

The  entire  time  of  this  meditative 
fragment  of  the  day  should  not  be 
given  to  retrospective  thought.  At 
least  a  few  minutes  should  always  be 
devoted  to  pondering  over  the  inner 
life  and  the  purpose  of  existence.  This 
will  prove  a  source  of  real  strength — 
a  living  spring  of  progressive  energy. 
Think  upon  the  desirability  of  the 
higher  life  and  of  the  transitory  nature 
of  everything  in  the  visible  world.  Re- 
flect upon  the  swift  flight  of  time,  the 
ever-increasing  speed  with  which  the 


Thought  Assimilation  39 

years  are  rolling  by;  upon  the  fact 
that  the  physical  life  is  as  short  as  it 
is  important  and  that  whoever  would 
use  it  wisely  has  no  time  to  lose  from 
what  remains.  Consider  the  utter 
uselessness  of  striving  for  wealth,  of 
accumulating  a  fortune,  large  or  small, 
of  giving  more  attention  to  the 
physical  body  than  will  keep  it  in 
health  and  comfort;  and  remember 
that  all  energy,  beyond  that,  expended 
upon  physical  things,  to  accumulate 
them  and  take  care  of  them,  is  worse 
than  wasted;  for  it  is  thought  and 
energy  invested  in  the  perishable — 
time  and  energy  that  could  be  utilized 
in  the  useful  work  of  helping  others 
forward,  which  incidentally  builds 
into  your  own  soul  the  things  that  do 
not  perish  but  which  will  multiply 
your  strength  and  widen  your  field  for 
future  lives.  Reflect  upon  the  fact 
that  warm  friendships  are  superior  to 
material  possessions;  upon  the  desir- 


40        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

ability  of  sterling  character  qualities; 
upon  the  fact  that  every  virtue,  grace, 
power  and  attribute  of  character  built 
into  one's  self  during  this  physical  life 
becomes  an  eternal  possession — a 
never- failing  source  of  sunshine  and 
joyousness  through  all  future  lives. 
Recall  the  most  care-free,  joyous, 
exalted  moments  of  your  conscious 
existence  and  reflect  that  that  con- 
dition should  be  your  normal  physical 
life — that  life  rightly  lived  is  joy,  al- 
though the  vast  majority  do  not  sus- 
pect it,  and  that  a  far  happier  life 
than  the  imagination  can  picture  can 
be  yours  in  the  near  future  if  the  as- 
piration to  live  up  to  the  highest  that 
is  in  you  is  assiduously  cultivated.  For 
at  least  a  few  moments  daily  give  free 
rein  to  your  imagination  and  let  it  pic- 
ture the  future  field  of  your  activities 
— build  the  stage  upon  which  you  shall 
play  the  drama  of  your  lives.  Refuse 
to  live  within  the  narrow  walls  of  this 


Thought  Assimilation  41 

one  incarnation.  Sweep  them  aside 
and  realize  that  this  little  life  is  but 
the  dull  and  gloomy  morning  of  the 
coming  radiant  day.  Plan  not  for  this 
small  hour  but  count  the  lives  that  lie 
ahead  as  a  part,  with  this,  of  one  im- 
posing whole.  Look  forward  to  future 
lives  as  youth  looks  forward  to  matur- 
ity. Make  your  plans  for  the  remain- 
der of  this  incarnation  as  in  the  clos- 
ing period  of  school  years  one  plans 
his  life's  career,  shaping  his  present 
energies  to  serve  his  future  purpose. 
This  daily  glimpse  of  wider  fields  in 
which  the  seeds  of  present  thought 
shall  blossom  into  deeds  of  worth  in 
future  lives  will,  in  time,  fan  the  faint- 
est aspirations  into  steady  flame  and 
give  to  the  inner  life  a  reality  that 
enables  the  student  to  comprehend 
something  of  the  delusive  character  of 
the  physical  existence  with  its  false 
standards  that  lead  the  unwary  astray. 


CHAPTER  V. 

SAFE  AND   DANGEROUS 
MENTAL  CONDITIONS 

In  the  previous  chapter  it  was  sug- 
gested that  the  time  set  aside  daily 
for  reviewing  the  events  of  the  pre- 
ceding hours  and  pondering  over  the 
meaning  of  life  and  its  varied  prob- 
lems should  be  a  period  of  tranquil 
thought  and  aspiration.  Perhaps  it 
may  not  be  amiss  to  add  that  the  word 
"tranquil"  should  not  be  taken  to  mean 
the  passivity  that  characterizes  the 
trance  medium  who  is  about  to  pass 
"under  control."  To  assume  that  atti- 
tude of  mind  is  to  abandon  oneself 
to  the  psychic  circumstances  of  the  mo- 
ment, without  the  slightest  opportunity 
of  judging  whether  they  may  be  good 
or  bad.  It  would  be  much  as  though 


Mental  Conditions  43 

a  blind  man  who  could  swim  but  little 
should  fling  himself  upon  the  tide,  not 
knowing  whether  it  would  carry  him 
into  water  that  was  safe  and  comfort- 
able or  into  a  dangerous  undertow.  The 
student's  will  should  always  be  in  con- 
trol. Under  no  circumstances  should 
it  be  surrendered  to  anything  or  any- 
body. It  is  his  purpose  to  know  him- 
self and  his  environment;  to  obtain 
first-hand  knowledge  of  the  mysteries 
of  life;  to  purify  his  vehicles  of  con- 
sciousness and  develop  his  spiritual 
powers  that  he  may  be  of  the  greatest 
possible  assistance  in  spreading  the 
light  and  helping  others  forward.  It 
is  not  his  purpose  to  evolve  the  char- 
acteristics that  will  permit  others  to 
speak  through  him — to  lend  his  body 
to  others  to  be  used  as  an  instrument 
for  the  communication  of  information 
about  which  he  can  personally  know 
nothing  and  the  truth  or  inaccuracy  of 
which  he  cannot  possibly  determine. 


44        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

That  sort  of  thing  can  well  be  left 
to  those  who  desire  to  engage  in  it. 
The  way  of  the  student  of  occultism 
lies  in  the  opposite  direction.  He  is 
to  learn  the  mastery  of  matter  and 
acquire  intelligent  control  of  occult 
forces,  not  to  become  an  unconscious 
and  helpless  automaton  in  the  hands  of 
others.  Therefore  when  he  withdraws 
daily  into  the  quietude  of  the  most 
retired  spot  to  which  he  has  access  and 
there,  alone  with  his  thoughts,  calmly 
and  serenely  gives  himself  up  to  re- 
flections upon  the  higher  life,  his  men- 
tal attitude  should  be  one  of  reception 
but  not  of  surrender.  He  should  be 
as  one  who  listens  for  the  faintest 
whisper  from  the  depths  of  being,  but 
who  uses  discrimination  in  its  testing 
and  reason  in  its  interpretation.  He 
should  be  at  all  times  mentally  and 
morally  awake  and  alert.  He  should 
not  be  misled  by  the  widespread  belief 
that  the  invisible  world  is  sharply 


Mental  Conditions  45 

divided  into  two  parts  and  that  those 
who  seek  information  from  the  realm 
hidden  to  physical  senses  are  surely 
making  connections  with  that  part 
known  as  heaven  when  they  succeed 
in  establishing  communication. 

Another  common  misconception  is 
that  all  who  have  died  are  good  and 
wise,  and  it  is  a  dangerous  one.  The 
chief  difference  between  those  we  call 
dead  and  the  rest  of  us  is  that  they 
have  no  physical  bodies  through  which 
to  function  in  the  visible  world.  As 
to  moral  difference  there  is  none;  and 
the  astral  world  certainly  presents  quite 
as  many  grades  of  moral  and  intellec- 
tual development  as  the  physical  life 
does.  The  selfishness  and  depravity 
that  characterize  unnumbered  thou- 
sands here  are  fully  as  conspicuous 
there.  Moreover  it  is  the  lower  and 
grosser  part  of  the  astral  world  that 
impinges  upon  the  physical  and  the 
facility  of  communication  increases 


46        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

with  the  coarseness  and  materiality  of 
the  matter  forming  the  normal  habitat 
of  the  disembodied  intelligence.  There- 
fore, should  the  student  of  occultism 
surrender  his  physical  body  to  such 
entities  as  may  desire  to  take  posses- 
sion of  it,  the  probability  of  getting 
information  of  any  value  is  exceed- 
ingly small,  while  the  possibility  of 
coming  into  contact  with  most  unfor- 
tunate influences  is  great.  Nor  would 
the  good  intentions  of  the  student  be 
a  guarantee  that  this  would  not  occur, 
any  more  than  the  good  intentions  of 
an  experimenting  chemist  will  insure 
him  against  injury  if  he  brings  the 
wrong  ingredients  together.  The  out- 
come for  the  student  would  doubtless 
depend  upon  the  karma  of  the  past  and 
the  natural  affinity  he  might,  or  might 
not,  have  for  various  classes  of  entities 
inhabiting  the  lower  levels  of  the  astral 
world.  But,  aside  from  what  might 
occur  in  such  a  case,  the  passive  sur- 


Mental  Conditions  47 

render  of  his  body  to  become  the  in- 
strument of  another,  no  matter  how 
well  he  might  be  protected  by  his 
karma,  is  a  step  in  the  wrong  direction 
and  therefore  not  progress  at  all.  One 
purpose  of  human  evolution  is  to 
achieve  the  mastery  of  matter,  to  come 
into  perfect  control  of  the  vehicles  of 
consciousness.  To  this  end  the  will 
must  be  cultivated,  not  surrendered; 
strengthened,  not  enfeebled* 


CHAPTER  VI. 
SELF-RELIANCE 

One  of  the  things  to  be  constantly 
aimed  at  is  self-reliance.  It  should 
be  most  assiduously  cultivated.  The 
sincere  student  of  occultism  is  striving 
to  perfect  himself  as  an  instrument  to 
be  used  in  quickening  human  evolu- 
tion. He  may  now  be  serving  that 
sublime  purpose  in  the  very  humblest 
way  but  he  will  not  overlook  the  fact 
that  great  tasks  await  the  willing  and 
capable  worker;  that  volunteers  for 
selfless  service  are  very,  very  few  and 
that  the  need  of  them  is  great.  There- 
fore he  will  understand  that  as  rapidly 
as  he  can  fit  himself  for  effective  ser- 
vice the  larger  tasks  will  be  found  at 
hand,  awaiting  him.  But  only  those 


Self-Reliauce  49 

who  have  evolved  the  necessary  quali- 
ties are  available  for  the  work  and  can 
hope  to  be  given  a  part  in  it;  and  of 
what  use  would  one  be  who  has  not 
become  self-reliant?  Worlds  are  not 
shaped  with  the  helpless  hands  of  in- 
fants. We  must  get  beyond  the  cling- 
ing, timorous,  dependent  stage  that 
characterizes  children,  before  we  shall 
be  Of  much  real  service  in  the  evolu- 
tionary work.  There  is  an  attitude  of 
mind  that  means  "Well,  I'm  willing 
enough  but  I  don't  know  what  to  do. 
I'm  ready  to  work  if  somebody  will 
furnish  me  a  place."  That  is  much 
better  than  indifference  but  it  is  not 
the  self-reliant  attitude  that  one  should 
strive  to  reach.  The  desirable  mental 
attitude  is  one  of  strong,  resolute  deter- 
mination to  find  a  way  to  serve  with- 
out anybody's  help — a  desire  to  be  use- 
ful, directed  by  steady,  self-reliant  pur- 
pose. 

In  the  most  prosaic  affairs  of  life 


50        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

and  in  earth's  hurly-burly  business 
grind  it  is  the  self-reliant  who  move 
the  world.  The  self-reliant  man  comes 
to  the  front  in  times  of  difficulty  and 
peril  as  naturally  as  oil  comes 
to  the  surface  of  water.  He  belongs 
there  by  right  of  ability  to  manage, 
to  direct.  Being  in  control  of  himself 
he  can  control  events.  Being  master 
of  himself  he  is  master  of  the  situation. 
In  a  crisis  all  instinctively  turn  to  the 
masterful  man. 

One  of  the  divine  characteristics  of 
occultism  is  its  absolute  justice.  Each 
is  exactly  what  he  makes  himself  and 
gets  precisely  what  he  earns ;  not  a  jot 
less  nor  more.  He  merely  comes  into 
his  own.  But  he  must  come  in  on  his 
own  account.  He  cannot  play  the  role 
of  Micawber  in  occultism,  waiting  for 
"something  to  turn  up"  that  will  carry 
him  into  useful  and  desirable  occult 
work  as  a  political  upheaval  sometimes 
carries  an  indifferent  candidate  into 


Self-Reliance  51 

office  to  the  surprise  of  everybody.  The 
successful  ones  who  have  made  rapid 
progress  in  occultism  are  those  who 
have  resolutely  forced  their  way  for- 
ward. They  did  not  even  wait  for  an 
opportunity,  but  made  it.  The  most 
conspicuous  figures  in  the  history  of 
the  Theosophical  Society  are  striking 
examples  of  what  comes  of  a  self- 
reliant  determination  to  serve;  that 
does  not  wait  even  for  an  invitation 
to  work  for  the  common  good.  Each 
created  a  field  and  filled  it.  Colonel 
Olcott,  for  example,  did  not  wait  for 
the  growth  and  maturity  of  an  occult 
society  that  could  furnish  him  the  office 
of  president  and  thus  give  him  an 
opportunity  to  be  uniquely  useful.  He 
set  to  work  and  built  the  organization, 
thus  becoming  signally  useful  to  the 
world  at  once.  The  others  did  not 
wait  for  the  western  nations  to  ask 
for  a  theosophical  literature.  They 
anticipated  the  demand  by  producing 


52        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

a  literature  that  will  some  day  be 
recognized  as  marking  an  epoch  in  the 
history  of  western  civilization. 

A  beginner  in  the  study  and  practice 
of  Theosophy  is  often  inclined  to  think 
that  it  is  only  a  few  who  can  do  im- 
portant things  and  the  rest  are  neces- 
sarily doomed  to  be  satisfied  with  look- 
ing on  and  applauding.  They  forget 
that  a  multiplicity  of  agencies  and 
methods  are  used  to  hasten  human 
evolution  and  that  the  apparently  unim- 
portant things  are  quite  as  necessary 
as  those  that  attract  attention.  They 
also  forget  that  those  who  are  doing 
the  great  things  once  stood  where  the 
beginner  now  stands  and  that  the 
younger  student  can  as  certainly  reach 
an  equally  important  and  useful  field 
of  activities  in  the  future,  if  he  really 
desires  to,  and  now  seeks  to  be  of  ser- 
vice in  the  smaller  way.  If  he  puts 
his  hand  to  the  small  work  now  he  shall 
grasp  the  great  task  later  as  certainly 


Self-Reliance  53 

as  he  lives  and  thinks.  But  no  one 
may  hope  to  be  entrusted  with  great 
responsibilities  until  he  has  proved 
that  he  is  capable  of  discharging  small 
ones. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  FATAL  DELUSION  OF 
DELAY 

Some  sound  advice  can  be  given  to 
seekers  after  occult  wisdom  in  two 
words :  act  now.  Don't  postpone  good 
intentions.  The  world  is  full  of  people 
who  have  a  vague  notion  that  at  some 
indefinite  time  and  in  some  dimly  com- 
prehended fashion  they  shall  get  to 
the  point  of  being  unselfishly  useful  to 
the  world.  Everywhere  we  meet  the 
people  who  are  going  to  do  something 
"sometime/'  One  is  waiting  until 
real  estate  takes  a  "boom"  so  that  the 
enhanced  value  of  his  investments  will 
pay  his  debts  and  then  he  will  be  free 
to  devote  himself  to  theosophical  work. 
Another  has  ability  as  a  public  speaker 
and,  with  theosophical  knowledge  to 


Fatal  Delusion  of  Delay  55 

impart,  could  render  invaluable  service. 
He  realizes  it  but  feels  that  he  must 
stay  in  business  until  he  "has  made  a 
lot  of  money,"  not  realizing  that  he 
doesn't  in  the  least  need  a  lot  of  money 
but  that  competent  and  sincere  work 
will  win  its  way.  Another  has  put  his 
financial  faith  in  mines  and  is  only 
waiting  till  they  develop  and  then,  well 
just  wait,  something  tremendous  will 
happen !  This  victim  of  delusion  misses 
the  point  that  a  dollar  in  the  hand  is 
worth  more  than  a  million  in  the  mine 
that  have  not  been  found.  The  dollar 
he  really  could  give  might  put  a  theo- 
sophical  book  in  a  public  library  or  buy 
a  dinner  for  a  hungry  family  or  mend 
the  shoes  of  a  shivering  child ;  but  the 
millions  he  dreams  about  will  very 
probably  never  do  anything  for  him  ex- 
cept keep  him  impoverished  in  the 
search  for  them ;  and  if  the  highly  im- 
probable should  occur  and  they  ever 
really  appear  they  will  so  engross  his 


56        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

attention  in  taking  care  of  them  that  he 
won't  have  time  to  think  of  anything 
else.  Another  tells  us  he  is  studying 
Theosophy  carefully  and  thoroughly 
and,  when  he  has  mastered  it,  he  will 
begin  to  teach;  quite  overlooking  the 
fact  that  if  he  were  to  live  a  thousand 
years  in  this  particular  life  he  could 
not  have  "mastered  it;"  and  that  if  he 
really  desires  to  teach  others  there  are 
always  those  at  hand  to  instruct  in 
some  way.  The  test  of  ability  to 
teach  is  not  the  fact  that  the  would-be 
teacher  knows  everything  but  that  he 
knows  more  than  those  to  be  taught. 
"Every  contact  is  an  opportunity." 

And  thus  it  is  with  those  who  wait. 
The  delusion  may  have  one  form  or 
another  but  the  result  is  the  same — 
inactivity  and  loss  of  opportunity.  The 
very  fact  that  they  feel  that  they  should 
do  something  is  the  evidence  that  they 
have  reached  the  point  in  evolution 
where  they  must  do  something  or  miss 


Fatal  Delusion  of  Delay  57 

their  opportunity;  that  is  to  say,  fail 
in  what  the  Hindu  calls  their  dharma, 
the  next  step  in  their  evolution  that  can 
be  taken  along  the  line  of  least  resist- 
ance. 

Act  now.  It  is  a  thousand  times 
better  to  do  a  little  at  once  than  to 
decide  that  a  great  deal  shall  be  done 
in  the  indefinite  future.  Mexico  is 
sometimes  called  by  travelers  the 
manana  country.  The  peons  who 
serve  you  readily  agree  that  anything 
you  desire  to  have  done,  shall  be 
done,  but — manana  senor — tomorrow! 
Never  to-day  on  any  account,  if  it 
can  be  avoided.  But  to-morrow,  oh, 
yes,  si  senor!  anything  you  like,  only 
not  now.  And  so  they  sit  in  the  sun, 
and  doze  and  dream,  in  serene  con- 
fidence that  it  will  be  easier  to-morrow. 
It  is  an  attitude  of  mind  in  perfect 
keeping  with  the  accompanying  pov- 
erty of  results.  It  is  the  same  species 
of  delusion  that  afflicts  those  of  higher 


58         Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

intellectual  development  who  yet  do 
not  stop  to  analyze  their  own  motives 
and  to  see  the  inconsistency  of  their 
declarations.  Anybody  who  really 
will  do  something  in  the  future  will  be 
found  doing  a  little  something  now— 
mingling  at  least  a  little  present  per- 
formance with  his  future  promises.  He 
will  realize  that  the  way  to  do  things 
is  to  begin,  no  matter  how  feeble  the 
beginning. 

Act  now.  An  occult  significance  in- 
vests those  two  little  words.  Action  is 
the  very  expression  of  life  on  the  physi- 
cal plane.  We  are  missing  the  purpose 
of  life  by  inaction.  We  are  simply  mark- 
ing time,  not  moving  forward  in  the 
evolutionary  march.  So  important  is 
action  that  it  is  better  even  to  blunder, 
while  trying  to  do  our  best,  than  not 
to  attempt  to  do  anything  at  all.  It 
is  better  for  an  infant  to  try  to  walk, 
and  fall,  than  never  to  make  the  ven- 
ture. The  pain  of  the  fall  will  pass 


Fatal  Delusion  of  Delay  59 

and  a  permanent  lesson  will  be  learned. 
In  India  a  mistaken  class  of  devotees 
withdraw  from  the  world  of  affairs 
and  by  cutting  off  almost  entirely  all 
relationship  with  the  rest  of  the  human 
race  seek  through  isolation  and  inaction 
to  avoid  responsibility  for  wrong  acts 
and  seek  salvation  for  the  self.  It  is 
said  by  occult  investigators  that  they 
succeed  so  well  in  the  desire  to  hold 
themselves  aloof  from  the  race  that  a 
terrible  isolation  is  their  future  fate. 
Against  this  foolish  course  a  great 
spiritual  truth  was  once  proclaimed: 
"Inaction  in  a  deed  of  mercy  becomes 
an  action  in  a  deadly  sin.''  And  so 
none  may  escape  his  responsibilities  to 
others  by  withdrawing  tortoise-like, 
into  his  shell  of  self-interests. 

The  second  word  shares  the  im- 
portance of  the  first.  "Now"  signifies 
the  most  vital  period  of  all  time.  The 
magic  of  success  lies  within  that  little 
word.  The  man  who  procrastinates 


60         Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

necessarily  misses  opportunities.  The 
very  essence  of  success  is  the  ability 
to  instantly  seize  and  utilize  an  oppor- 
tunity. Every  event  has  its  "psycho- 
logical moment."  The  most  mo- 
mentous affairs  of  the  world  swing  this 
way,  or  that  way,  with  the  instan- 
taneous decision  of  some  master  mind. 
On  the  other  hand  the  results  in  many 
a  battle  and  in  many  a  national  crisis 
have  been  changed  and  the  tide  of  suc- 
cess turned  in  the  direction  of  disaster 
by  the  hesitation  and  indecision  of  one 
who  was  the  unfortunate  victim  of 
procrastination.  To  form  the  habit  of 
quick  decision  and  prompt  action  is  to 
arm  oneself  with  a  mighty  weapon  for 
successful  work;  and  with  the  cultiva- 
tion of  such  a  habit  of  life  gradually 
comes  the  ability  to  recognize  the  pro- 
pitious moment  when  it  arrives. 

"There  is  a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men, 
Which,  taken  at  the  flood,  leads  on  to  fortune; 
Omitted,  all  the  voyage  of  their  life 
Is  bound  in  shallows  and  in  miseries. ' ' 


ratal  Delusion  of  Del?y  61 

That  tide  is  often  at  the  flood  for 
a  moment  only  and  he  who,  through 
procrastination,  fails  to  utilize  that 
golden  moment  has  paid  dearly  for  his 
negligence.  Procrastination  is  one  of 
the  fetters  that  binds,  one  of  the  bars 
that  imprisons.  If  we  would  make 
progress  worthy  of  students  of  occult- 
ism we  must  free  ourselves  from  this 
encumbrance.  We  must  acquire  the 
art  of  prompt  decision  and  immediate 
action.  We  must  not  be  postponers. 
We  must  not  be  content  with  resolving 
that  a  thing  ought  to  be  done,  and  then 
quieting  the  divine  insistence  of  the 
higher  self  with  the  comfortable 
thought  that  sometime,  somehow,  we 
will  do  it.  We  must  acquire  the 
beneficient  habit  of  doing  things  for 
the  common  welfare  and  of  doing  them 
now. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  ONE    PROTECTION 
AGAINST  DANGER 

There  is  one  thing  the  young  student 
of  occultism  should  not  overlook,  for 
its  importance  to  him  is  tremendous. 
He  should  keep  well  in  mind  the  fact 
that  the  development  of  the  heart  quali- 
ties is  the  very  essence  of  real  progress. 
He  is  likely  to  have  the  notion  that  it 
is  all  a  matter  of  acquiring  knowledge; 
that  he  can  settle  down  to  a  study  of 
the  books  and  that  the  information  he 
thus  gets  will  solve  all  his  problems; 
that  there  is  nothing  to  do  but  to  ac- 
quire a  thorough  understanding  of  oc- 
cult laws  and  principles.  But  this  is 
a  grave  mistake.  A  mere  intellectual 
grasp  of  Theosophy  will  be  of  little 
service  to  him.  Indeed,  if  he  does  not 


Protection  Against  Danger  63 

live  it  as  well  as  understand  it,  then 
occult  knowledge  will  be  a  detriment 
to  him.  If  he  uses  the  information 
he  acquires  merely  to  get  more  from 
the  material  life  for  himself  he  would 
be  more  fortunate  without  it.  A  purely 
selfish  use  of  anything  is  unfortunate 
but  a  selfish  use  of  occult  knowledge 
is  most  unfortunate.  Such  a  course 
leads  onward  to  a  very  great  danger— 
a  peril  that  increases  with  every  for- 
ward step  in  knowledge  that  is  used 
for  one's  self.  There  may  be  swift 
progress  in  the  acquirement  of  such 
knowledge  but  it  is  not  spiritual 
progress.  It  is  merely  intellectual  de- 
velopment; and  it  is  only  a  question 
of  time  when  the  student  who  follows 
that  course  will  likely  find  himself  cut 
off  from  the  life  current  of  Theosophy 
and  left  to  hug  his  intellectual  idols  by 
the  wayside — the  most  fortunate  thing 
that,  under  the  circumstances,  can  hap- 
pen to  him.  The  alternative  is  that 


64        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

he  may  go  on  in  occult  development 
and  the  acquiring  of  occult  power  for 
selfish  use  until  he  has  brought  upon 
himself  the  corrective  reaction  of 
nature  for  such  misuse  of  her  gifts — a 
fate  that  sums  up  in  one  tragedy  all 
the  pains,  penalties  and  horrors  the 
imagination  can  picture. 

Of  course  such  a  possible  finale  lies 
in  the  far  away  time,  along  the  intel- 
lectual road,  but  that  only  serves  to 
increase  the  present  danger  by  making 
it  appear  distant,  vague  and  uncertain. 
But  the  relationship  between  beginning 
and  end  is  as  certain  as  that  between 
the  placid  waters  of  the  Niagara  river 
and  the  rushing  falls  a  few  miles 
below.  A  stranger  on  those  waters, 
who  had  never  seen  the  falls,  would 
regard  a  warning  as  an  impertinence. 
His  boat  would  move  obedient  to  the 
oars  and  there  would  be  no  more  in- 
dication of  danger  than  upon  any  other 
river.  Should  he  choose  to  drift  slowly 


Protection  Against  Danger  65 

down  the  stream  he  would  be  a  long 
time  reaching  the  point  where  his  speed 
would  perceptibly  increase.  Then  its 
steady  acceleration  would  be  so  grad- 
ual that  there  would  be  no  apparent 
cause  for  alarm  until  it  had  become  too 
late  for  possible  escape.  No  less  directly 
connected  are  the  trifling  use  of  occult 
powers  for  selfish  purposes  and  the 
great  peril  that  is  related  to  it.  Make 
no  mistakes  because  the  water  is  placid 
now.  The  falls  are  ahead,  neverthe- 
less, for  all  who  follow  the  selfish 
course. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  the  young  stu- 
dent cannot  begin  too  early  to  consider 
this  danger  and  to  take  the  precautions 
that  shall  insure  his  safety.  Unselfish- 
ness will  be  his  protection.  By  its 
cultivation  he  fortifies  himself;  he  in- 
sures his  safety  in  advance.  He  should 
try  to  acquire  the  habit  of  thinking 
much  of  others,  and  considering  their 
welfare.  If  he  enters  the  Theosophical 


66        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

Society  the  chief  reason  should  be 
because  it  gives  him  an  opportunity 
to  help  humanity  along  in  its  evolution 
and  he  should  think  of  the  occult  in- 
formation he  gets,  not  as  so  much 
personal  possession,  but  as  so  much 
added  knowledge  and  power  with 
which  to  help  others  along.  The 
desire  to  help  should  be  culti- 
vated in  every  possible  way  until 
it  becomes  the  habit  of  the  waking 
consciousness.  There  is  an  inner 
and  an  outer  courtesy.  The  outer 
concerns  itself  with  forms.  It  is  con- 
ventional and  gives  skill  in  social 
graces  and  certain  rules  and  usages  that 
prevent  friction.  It  is  satisfied  if  it 
violates  no  law.  The  inner  courtesy 
is  born  of  a  real  regard  for  the  wel- 
fare of  others.  The  person  who  pos- 
sesses it  is  thinking  less  of  the  rules 
and  how  he  shall  appear  to  others  than 
of  how  he  can  be  helpful  to  those  about 
him;  and  nobody  does,  or  can,  possess 


Protection  Against  Danger  67 

this  inner  courtesy  until  he  feels  right 
toward  other  human  beings.  It  is  the 
very  blossom  of  unselfishness.  This 
mental  attitude  of  helpfulness  should 
be  constant  and  enduring.  It  should  be 
carried  through  the  daily  round  of  oc- 
cupations. In  the  home,  the  office, 
the  street,  the  Theosophist  should  be 
keen  and  alert  for  every  opportunity 
to  be  useful.  He  should  cultivate  both 
the  habit  of  being  helpful  and  the  habit 
of  utilizing  every  opportunity  that 
comes  to  him  to  assist  others. 

CULTIVATING  SYMPATHY. 

It  is  said  that  in  all  true  schools 
of  occultism  there  is  a  golden  rule  that 
insures  the  safety  of  the  student;  and 
this  rule  is  that  for  every  step  taken 
in  acquiring  occult  knowledge  three 
steps  are  to  be  taken  in  perfecting 
character.  From  this  it  will  easily  be 
seen  that  it  is  not  enough  to  cultivate 


68        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

the  habit  of  helpfulness.  It  is  most 
excellent  and  necessary  but  there 
should  be  something  more.  The  stu- 
dent should  work  steadily  at  the  devel- 
opment of  the  heart  qualities,  for  his 
future  safety  lies  there.  His  sym- 
pathy with  suffering  can  be  quickened 
and  the  heart  made  to  keep  pace  with 
the  intellect  by  practical  work  among 
the  people  about  him  wherever  he  may 
be.  There  are  always  the  sick,  the 
unfortunate,  the  blind,  the  aged  and 
feeble.  Every  community  has  those 
who  are  confined  to  their  homes  by 
illness,  accident  or  old  age.  Such 
people  spend  much  time  in  lonely  soli- 
tude. Those  around  them  who  are  not 
in  their  condition  are  too  busy  to 
realize  the  situation.  To  an  active  per- 
son suddenly  confined  to  a  room  by 
accident  or  by  illness  the  hours  of  an 
afternoon  spent  alone  seem  endless.  To 
an  aged  person  accustomed  to  the  more 
sociable  ways  of  the  past  generation — 


Protection  Against  Danger  69 

who  feels  that  the  world  has  moved 
on  and  left  him — a  call  that  breaks 
the  monotony  of  a  day  with  a  conver- 
sation he  can  appreciate  must  be  a 
boon.  The  student  of  occultism  who 
is  looking  for  opportunities  to  be  use- 
ful and  for  conditions  that  will  quicken 
human  sympathy  need  not  look  far. 
He  can  easily  make  up  a  practical 
working  list  by  which  he  can  daily  give 
a  half  hour,  or  an  hour,  of  thought 
and  time  to  others  entirely  outside  the 
line  of  what  can  be  considered  his 
duties  or  obligations.  A  cheery  visit 
to  the  sick,  a  social  chat  with  some  per- 
son too  infirm  to  go  out,  a  trifling 
service  to  some  unfortunate,  are  things 
of  genuine  value  out  of  all  proportion 
to  their  apparent  worth.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  find  the  unfortunate,  for 
they  are  everywhere.  The  hospitals 
are  excellent  fields  for  benevolent 
work,  and  especially  the  county  hos- 
pitals. In  the  free  wards  of  any  hos- 


70        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

pital  there  are  always  those  suffering 
from  the  double  affliction  of  sickness 
and  poverty  and  the  appearance  of  a 
sympathetic  person  as  a  visitor  would 
be  welcomed  with  delight 

The  prisons  are,  of  course,  always 
a  good  field  for  benevolent  work.  If 
one  finds  it  difficult  to  get  into  such 
work  he  can  at  least  confer  small 
favors.  He  can  take  some  magazines 
or  illustrated  papers  as  gifts  and  say 
a  few  cheerful  words.  Then  he  can 
gradually  get  into  sympathetic  touch 
with  some  particular  prisoner,  study 
his  case  in  a  friendly  way  and  find 
how  he  can  be  of  real  service  to  the 
unfortunate  one. 

Other  avenues  of  helpfulness  will 
open  up  to  the  person  who  turns  his 
mind  to  the  subject.  If  hospitals  and 
prisons  are  not  accessible  then  there 
are  always  the  simpler  things  at  hand. 
There  are  tired  mothers  who  can  be 
relieved  of  the  care  of  children  for  a 


Protection  Against  Danger  71 

few  hours;  there  are  anxious  fathers 
out  of  work  who  may  possibly  be 
helped  to  find  employment;  there  are 
overworked  factory  girls,  slaving  to 
earn  a  bare  living,  who  would  be  de- 
lighted with  some  discarded  clothing; 
there  are  children  in  the  poorer  dis- 
tricts who  seldom  or  never  get  an  out- 
ing. 

Nothing  is  more  necessary  to  the  stu- 
dent of  occultism  than  such  sympath- 
etic participation  in  human  affairs  and 
yet  it  is  a  thing  that  is  sadly  neglected. 
There  is  no  greater  mistake  than  the 
belief  that  such  work  is  unimportant, 
and  can  be  left  to  the  Salvation  Army 
or  the  Associated  Charities,  and  no 
more  fatal  blunder  than  the  notion  that 
time  cannot  be  taken  from  study  in 
order  to  give  trivial  assistance  to  our 
less  fortunate  brothers.  That  is  just 
what  can  be  done  with  the  greatest 
advantage  to  ourselves. 

To  set  aside  some  part  of  one's  time 


72        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

for  the  deliberate  cultivation  of  human 
sympathy,  to  make  oneself  a  center  for 
radiating  the  sunshine  of  life,  to  thus 
take  thought  of  the  welfare  of  others, 
and  to  become  practically  helpful  to 
them,  is  to  imitate,  in  some  degree,  the 
life  and  work  of  the  great  Masters  of 
Compassion  who  are  giving,  not  some, 
but  all  of  their  energies  to  practical 
work  for  the  world  with  never  a 
thought  of  themselves. 

It  is  a  very  grave  mistake  to  become 
so  absorbed  in  one's  business  or 
studies  as  to  be  almost  unconscious  of 
the  lives  of  others.  Such  a  life  is  one- 
sided and  unbalanced.  To  spend  all 
one's  time  accumulating  information  is 
second  only  to  the  foolishness  of  giving 
an  incarnation  to  the  accumulation  of 
money — and  that  would  be  nearly  as 
foolish  as  to  spend  a  winter  accumu- 
lating snow.  It  is  the  folly  of  follies 
to  devote  time  exclusively  to  study,  to 
the  neglect  of  practice.  And  yet  there 


Protection  Against  Danger  73 

are  many  who  make  that  mistake.  You 
may  hear  them  say:  'The  Theo- 
sophical  Society  is  not  for  material 
work.  It  is  for  the  purpose  of  train- 
ing students  of  occultism."  And  you 
may  observe  those  who  hold  such 
views  diligently  studying  the  Secret 
Doctrine,  and  other  profound  works  in 
occultism,  for  years — and  doing  little 
else!  They  acquire  much  occult  in- 
formation, which  doubtless  gives  them 
the  same  sort  of  mental  satisfaction 
that  some  people  feel  in  accumulating 
money.  But  they  make  no  use  of  the 
information  for  the  world's  helping. 
It  is  as  though  a  would-be  hero  should 
spend  a  lifetime  training  to  become  the 
most  valiant  member  of  a  life-saving 
crew  and,  in  his  anxiety  to  learn  every- 
thing to  be  known  about  storms,  life- 
boats, signals  and  resuscitations,  he 
should  never  find  time  to  join  his  com- 
rades in  the  actual  work  of  rescuing 
shipwrecked  people.  Students  of  that 


74        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

class  naturally  settle  into  the  study  rut 
and  the  real,  living,  theosophical  move- 
ment sweeps  past  them  and  is  lost.  To 
be  of  any  value  to  a  person  Theosophy 
must  be  lived,  not  merely  intellectually 
comprehended,  and  it  is  in  order  to 
live  it  to  the  uttermost,  to  the  very  full- 
est, that  the  student  should  seek  to 
blend  precept  and  practice  in  an  ideal 
life. 

Becoming  completely  absorbed  in 
business  or  in  one's  studies,  while  sur- 
rounded by  all  the  opportunities  pre- 
sented by  the  physical  plane  life,  is 
much  like  going  to  a  good  play  and 
then  reading  a  newspaper  while  the 
performance  goes  on  unnoticed.  The 
life  we  are  now  living  gives  admirable 
opportunities  for  balanced  develop- 
ment, and  it  is  just  the  things  we  do 
not  naturally  take  to  that  may  be  most 
in  need  of  attention.  The  person  who 
has  a  strong  tendency  to  give  most  of 
his  time  to  amusements  can  clearly  im- 


Protection  Against  Danger  75 

prove  matters  by  turning  some  atten- 
tion to  study ;  and  no  less  certainly  can 
the  one  who  is  wholly  absorbed  in 
study  give  some  time  to  other  things, 
to  his  great  profit.  The  improvement 
of  the  intellect  is  important,  but  by 
no  means  the  important  thing  in  life. 
The  cultivation  of  sympathy,  of  com- 
passion, is  tremendously  more  im- 
portant to  the  student  of  occultism,  and 
yet  it  is  precisely  the  thing  that  we  sel- 
dom think  of  as  requiring  systematic 
development.  We  have  many  methods 
and  countless  contrivances  for  develop- 
ing the  intellect  but  we  leave  the  heart 
qualities  to  take  care  of  themselves,  and 
to  grow  in  any  vague  and  indefinite 
way  that  may  come  about. 

It  is  quite  as  possible  to  cultivate 
compassion  as  to  cultivate  the  intel- 
lect, but  it  requires  to  be  done  with 
attention  and  systematic  effort.  The 
necessity  for  it  must  first  be  recognized 
and  the  mind  be  turned  resolutely  to 


76        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

the  subject.  This  is  the  first  step  to- 
ward breaking  up  that  self -centered 
absorption  that  makes  us  oblivious  of 
the  struggling  brothers  beside  us  on 
life's  highway.  Then  one  begins  to 
observe  more  and  more  the  difficulties 
and  the  life-problems  of  those  about 
him.  And  as  he  looks  and  listens  his 
sympathy  grows  strong. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE     CONDITIONS    OF 
SPIRITUAL  PROGRESS 

One  of  the  essentials  in  spiritual 
progress  is  the  giving  out  of  what  is 
received.  Without  such  giving  there 
can  be  no  real  growth.  There  may 
be  the  accumulation  of  certain  knowl- 
edge, but  it  will  prove  as  worthless 
to  its  possessor,  who  relies  upon  that 
to  carry  him  through,  as  gold  would 
be  to  a  man  perishing  alone  in  the 
desert,  where  all  his  life-long  accumu- 
lations of  money  would  avail  him 
nothing — could  not  procure  him  a 
crust  of  bread  nor  a  single  drop  of 
water.  No,  spiritual  growth  can  never 
come  of  the  accumulation  of  occult  in- 
formation— of  probing  into  the  secrets 
of  nature  and  adding  one  fact  to  an- 


78         Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

other  until  the  possessor  feels  that  he 
is  well  versed  in  mystic  lore.  To  grow 
spiritually  means  to  live  more  vividly, 
to  have  a  greater  life  capacity.  To 
accumulate  much  knowledge  and  to 
make  spiritual  progress  are  two  very 
different  things.  It  is  not  facts  we 
need  so  much  as  capacity  to  live,  to 
love,  to  know  the  joy  that  we  are  now 
unable  to  comprehend.  An  infant  a 
week  old  has  five  senses  and  is  equipped 
with  motor  and  sensory  nerves ;  but  it 
has  not  yet  developed  to  that  stage  of 
its  physical  existence  in  which  they  are 
available  for  the  enjoyment  of  a  more 
abundant  life  than  that  it  is  living. 
Therefore  it  cannot  live  the  wider, 
keener  life  of  the  healthy  adult  who 
finds  manifold  pleasures  in  physical 
existence.  It  cannot  even  comprehend 
that  wider  life.  The  difference  is 
merely  one  of  capacity  to  live.  Still 
greater  is  the  difference  between  the 
man  who  is  spiritually  undeveloped  and 


Spiritual  Progress  79 

the  one  who  has  evolved  the  capacity; 
to  know  the  higher  joys  of  the  uni- 
verse. One  is  a  spiritual  infant,  with 
inherent  but  dormant  faculties.  The 
other  is  the  spiritual  adult,  whose  de- 
veloped faculties  give  him  a  capacity 
to  live  and  enjoy  life  in  a  way  that 
is  as  little  comprehended  by  the  or- 
dinary man  of  the  world  as  the  pleas- 
ures of  literature,  art  and  music  are 
unknown  to  the  infant  in  its  cradle. 
The  baby  inhabits  the  same  world  as 
the  adult  and  precisely  the  same  sights 
and  sounds  are  about  him,  but  he  has 
not  as  yet  the  capacity  to  appropriate 
them.  In  the  very  house  he  inhabits 
there  may  be  libraries  of  choice  liter- 
ature, and  art  treasures  of  exquisite 
beauty,  while  some  master  musician 
thrills  all  who  listen  with  divinest  har- 
monies ;  but  they  simply  have  no  exist- 
ence for  the  infant  because  he  has  not 
the  capacity  for  a  life  so  full  and  rich. 
Ability  to  receive,  to  respond  to  that 


80        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

which  exists,  is  the  measure  of  one's 
life. 

To  grow  spiritually  is  to  develop 
one's  latent  capacities,  to  enlarge  the 
horizon  of  consciousness  and  to  come 
into  accord  with  the  life-stream  that 
pulses  through  the  universe.  It  is  not 
a  process  of  accumulating  information, 
or  accumulating  anything;  but  rather 
of  getting  rid  of  the  impediments  that 
obstruct  the  life-stream — that  shut  us 
out  from  the  cosmic  life-rhythm — that 
compel  the  universal  life-tide  to  flow 
about  us  instead  of  through  us. 

To  get  spiritual  knowledge  and  keep 
it,  instead  of  being  the  method  of 
spiritual  growth,  is  one  of  the  impedi- 
ments that  shuts  out  the  life-current. 
A  truth  discovered  should  become  a 
truth  promulgated.  Pass  on  the 
thought  if  you  would  receive  more. 
Treasure  no  spiritual  knowledge  as  a 
personal  possession  if  you  would  not 
be  cut  off  from  the  source  of  wisdom. 


Spiritual  Progress  81 

One  grows  most,  spiritually,  when  the 
life-stream  flows  most  through  him  to 
others.  One  who  seeks  to  have  and  to 
hold  is  like  a  pond  without  an  outlet, 
covered  with  its  green  slime  of  im- 
purity. He  represents  spiritual  stag- 
nation. One  who  receives  and  gives 
again  is  like  a  lake  from  which  springs 
a  noble  stream  to  quench  the  thirst  of 
parching  fields  beyond.  It  is  to  the 
pond  what  sunshine  is  to  shadow — 
what  health  is  to  disease.  The  pond 
is  not  without  a  certain  phase  of  life. 
In  its  putrid  waters  swarm  myriads  of 
animalculae  and  from  its  reeking  sur- 
face arises  the  effluvia  of  fever.  It 
is  a  noxious  sort  of  life — the  individual 
life  turned  inward  upon  itself.  There 
can  be  no  true  life  without  outward 
activity.  Life  and  activity  are  in- 
separable. The  ocean  is  the  antithesis 
of  the  stagnant  pond.  All  that  the 
ocean  receives  from  the  countless  rivers 
it  gives  back  to  the  skies.  It  is  the 


82        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

eternal  rebuke  of  both  selfishness  and 
inaction.  Its  ceaseless  tides  and  cur- 
rents are  the  rhythmic  pulse  of  health. 
From  the  land  it  receives,  purifies  and 
returns  the  gift.  .The  miserly  pond 
becomes  stagnant  in  a  week — the  gen- 
erous ocean  never. 

SPREADING  THE  LIGHT. 

The  stream  must  flow  through  the 
mind,  not  stop  there,  if  spiritual 
growth  is  to  begin  and  continue.  Ways 
must  be  found  of  handing  on  the  gift, 
of  letting  the  light  shine,  of  being  an 
instrument  for  the  illumination  of 
others.  No  person  can  get  something 
for  nothing  (although  he  may  foolishly 
believe  he  can)  or  get  help  without 
helping.  If  he  has  already  had  some 
light  it  only  signifies  that  he  had  a 
claim  upon  nature  that  has  thus  been 
paid.  It  may  have  been  established 
without  thought  of  what  was  occur- 


Spiritual  Progress  83 

ring,  but  it  was  due  him  and  payment 
was  inevitable  and  as  natural  as  the 
rising  of  the  sun  or  the  coming  of  the 
summer.  But  the  fact  that  some  light 
and  help  have  come  does  not  prove 
that  they  will  continue  if  they  are  re- 
ceived as  a  matter  of  course  and 
thought  of  as  a  personal  possession 
that  concerns  nobody  else.  To  the  uni- 
verse every  soul  is  important  and  one 
cannot  be  more  important  than  an- 
other. Why,  then,  should  anybody 
imagine  that  spiritual  truth  is  for  him 
rather  than  for  the  scores  who  can  .re- 
ceive it  through  him? 

There  are  some  games  that  reverse 
the  common  rule  of  procedure  and  the 
winner  is  held  to  be  he  who  can  first 
get  rid  of  all  the  points  he  holds.  And 
so  it  is  with  things  spiritual.  Progress 
is  by  reversal  of  the  common  rule  of 
procedure  of  the  physical  world.  It  is 
not  by  grasping  but  by  giving  that  we 
get  more, — that  we  finally  win.  Only 


84        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

by  the  process  of  giving  can  the  as- 
pirant gain.  He  cannot  get  the  full 
benefit  of  a  spiritual  truth  until  he  has 
given  it  to  others.  The  more  he  gives 
the  richer  he  becomes.  He  cannot 
pass  knowledge  on  to  others  without 
getting  more  wisdom  from  it  himself. 
The  effort  to  enlighten  others  increases 
his  own  illumination,  and  the  more  he 
gives  the  more  he  gets.  His  very  for- 
getfulness  of  himself  in  the  work  of 
helping  others  gives  the  conditions  that 
insure  his  rapid  progress. 

Of  course  one  should  never  make 
himself  a  nuisance  by  talking  Theoso- 
phy  to  anybody  and  everybody  in  sea- 
son and  out.  Judgment  and  discrim- 
ination must  guide  him.  There  are 
people  to  whom  Theosophy  can  be  ex- 
plained with  as  little  profit  as  one  can 
urge  the  beauties  of  the  landscape  upon 
his  horse.  The  majority  of  people  can 
no  more  receive  Theosophy  in  the  ab- 
stract and  shape  their  lives  by  its  pre- 


Spiritual  Progress  85 

cepts  than  a  Fiji  savage  can  see  the 
necessity  for  railways  and  libraries.  As 
the  savage  must  evolve  a  long  way 
before  he  even  understands  what  civi- 
lization is,  so  most  people  must  pass 
through  much  bitter  experience  before 
they  begin  to  see  the  purpose  of 
physical  existence  at  all  and  to  under- 
stand that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a 
life  that  is  not  centered  in  material 
things  and  material  pursuits.  But  cer- 
tain it  is  that  in  every  community  there 
are  a  few  people  who  can  receive 
Theosophy,  as  Theosophy,  as  a  phi- 
losophy of  life,  as  the  science  of  the 
soul,  while  almost  everybody  can  re- 
ceive it  indirectly ;  that  is,  accept  some- 
thing of  its  principles  when  they  are 
not  labeled  "Theosophy,"  and  when 
they  are  unaccompanied  with  any  effort 
to  induce  them  to  accept  a  new  and 
strange  view  of  existence  that  suddenly 
upsets  all  their  established  ideas.  There 
are  always  opportunities  everywhere  to 


86         Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

give  some  light  to  others,  for  all  are 
struggling  with  their  personal  prob- 
lems; and  if  we  see  that  we  cannot 
give  one  who  is  groping  in  the  dark 
the  light  of  the  entire  philosophy  we 
can  usually  at  least  give  him  a  sugges- 
tion that  will  help.  Suppose,  for 
example,  that  a  friend  has  a  grievance 
against  somebody  and  blindly  and  fool- 
ishly determines  to  "get  even,"  and 
nurses  his  wrath  against  a  hoped-for 
day  of  vengeance.  We  can  at  least 
declare  our  belief  in  the  folly  of  such 
a  course  and  express  admiration  for 
the  magnanimity  that  can  ignore  a  per- 
sonal affront.  We  can  always  talk 
tolerance  where  there  is  narrowness, 
justice  where  there  is  oppression  and 
mercy  where  there  is  cruelty.  With- 
out dogmatically  arguing  our  beliefs 
we  can  quietly  let  it  be  known  that  we 
are  Theosophists,  when  it  is  appro- 
priate to  the  occasion,  and  modestly 
but  unhesitatingly  champion  the  truth 


Spiritual  Progress  87 

as  we  see  it  when  the  opportunity 
occurs.  Most  important  of  all,  we  can 
constantly  be  in  that  helpful  frame  of 
mind  that  is  always  ready  to  give  freely 
to  others  all  the  light  that  we  have 
been  given,  for  that  is  a  step  toward 
the  goal  of  perfect  illumination. 


CHAPTER  X. 
CONQUERING  DELUSIONS 

As  the  young  student  of  occultism 
gets  fairly  into  his  work  he  will  find 
that  his  viewpoint  is  gradually  chang- 
ing and  that  old  ideas  are  being  re- 
placed by  newer  and  truer  ones.  Ul- 
timately he  will  discover  that  he  has 
been  living  in  the  midst  of  delusions 
and  mistaking  them  for  realities.  One 
part  of  his  work  now  is  to  conquer  the 
delusions  and  come  into  a  realization  of 
the  truth  that  is  hidden  by  outward 
appearances.  To  acquire  the  ability 
to  distinguish  between  the  apparent  and 
the  real  is  a  stupendous  task,  for  only 
when  human  evolution  is  finished  can 
such  discrimination  be  perfect.  But 
the  searcher  for  occult  truth  can  take 
a  step  that  will  start  him  on  the  way, 


Conquering  Delusions  89 

and  that  is  the  important  thing  now. 
To  this  end  he  may  begin  with  an 
effort  to  master  the  illusion  that  the 
physical  body  is  himself.  We  are  so 
used  to  identifying  the  self  with  the 
body  from  our  very  infancy  that  to 
separate  the  two  in  thought  even  for  a 
moment  is  at  first  nearly  impossible, 
and  yet  it  must  be  done.  To  fully 
realize  that  the  body  is  as  much  an 
instrument  of  the  self  as  the  hand  is, 
or  as  one's  pen  is,  constitutes  one  of 
the  first  steps  in  occult  progress.  We 
have  before  us  the  work  of  freeing 
ourselves  from  delusions  and  this  one 
that  leads  us  to  think  of  the  body  as 
the  self  is  a  starting  point  in  the  task. 
When  it  is  accomplished  we  shall  have 
made  a  most  encouraging  forward  step 
that  will  lead  to  success  in  more  diffi- 
cult ones. 

There  are  various  ways  in  which  we 
can  gradually  acquire  the  feeling  that 
the  body  is  not  at  all  the  self,  but  only 


90         Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

a  thing  we  use  for  our  convenience. 
One  useful  way  is  to  keep  in  mind  the 
fact  that  the  body  is  a  mere  aggrega- 
tion of  matter  that  has  no  permanent 
relationship  to  the  self;  that  this  aggre- 
gation of  physical  matter  is  constantly 
changing ;  that  it  is  always  coming  and 
going  and  is  never  the  same  for  even 
a  few  days  at  a  time.  Some  parts  of 
it  are  replaced  with  new  matter  more 
slowly  than  others,  but  within  a  very 
few  years  (the  seven  years  suggested 
by  some  physiologists  is  now  said  to  be 
much  too  long  for  the  facts)  the  entire 
body  will  be  replaced  by  new  matter. 
To  put  it  differently,  the  physical  body 
a  person  has  to-day  will,  in  a  short 
time,  have  been  returned  to  the  ele- 
ments of  which  it  is  composed,  while 
matter  that  is  now  widely  scattered 
over  the  earth  will,  by  that  time,  be 
fashioned  into  the  physical  body  he  is 
yet  to  have.  As  a  matter  of  scientific 
fact,  from  birth  to  death  we  have  many 


Conquering  Delusions  91 

physical  bodies  but  the  process  of  their 
coming  and  going  is  so  gradual  and 
imperceptible  that  we  do  not  realize 
it.  Nevertheless  the  quantity  of  mat- 
ter that  a  man  uses  as  a  body,  in  the 
course  of  a  long  life — the  matter  which 
the  average  man  regards  as  himself — 
will  amount  to  more  than  a  ton.  A 
very  little  thought  will  show  anybody 
the  folly  of  identifying  that  ton  of 
matter  as  himself!  It  is  only  a  quan- 
tity of  matter  brought  together  to  build 
a  working  instrument  for  the  self,  as 
the  matter  in  the  pen  has  been  fash- 
ioned into  a  different  instrument  for 
the  use  of  the  self;  only,  in  the  case 
of  the  body  the  matter  has  not  all  been 
used  at  one  time.  If  the  student  will 
remember  that  the  self,  with  all  its 
memories,  is  unaffected  by  this  con- 
stant change  in  the  physical  body ;  that 
it  really  has  no  permanent  relationship 
whatever  to  the  body,  which,  to  the  eye 
of  science  is  but  a  whirling,  shifting 


92        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

mass  of  matter,  the  delusion  that  he 
is  the  body  will  begin  to  lose  its  power 
over  his  mind.  Think  continually  of 
the  body  as  merely  a  changing  aggre- 
gation of  atoms,  forming,  reforming, 
disappearing,  while  the  self  is  per- 
manent, enduring  and  independent, 
temporarily  using  the  physical  body 
but  ready  when  the  time  comes  to  step 
entirely  aside  from  it,  to  use  it  no 
longer,  to  return  to  it  no  more. 

It  is  not  easy  to  think  of  the  self 
as  separated  from  the  familiar  form 
we  know  and  here  the  student  of 
Theosophy  will  be  helped  by  the  fact 
that  the  astral  body  is  a  duplicate  of  the 
physical  form.  Remembering  that  the 
astral  is  a  degree  nearer  reality  than 
the  physical  region  he  can  think  of  the 
astral  body  as  representing  the  self  and 
thus,  in  thought,  separate  himself  from 
the  physical  body  and  picture  the  self 
with  all  its  attributes  and  powers  being 
expressed  in  the  higher  vehicles,  wholly 


Conquering  Delusions  93 

independent  of  the  mass  of  matter 
called  the  physical  body.  Of  course 
he  cannot  stop  there.  It  is  but  a  be- 
ginning. The  time  will  come  when 
he  must  separate  the  self  from  the 
astral  body  also,  and  from  the  mental 
body  as  well.  The  thing  he  may 
really  do  with  good  results  is  to  go 
as  far  up  as  the  causal  body  in  his 
thought  of  separating  the  self  from  its 
vehicles.  He  should  always  think 
of  these  invisible  vehicles,  or  bodies, 
as  being  composed  of  matter  that  freely 
interpenetrates  the  physical  body  as 
water  saturates  a  sponge.  He  should 
keep  it  always  .in  mind  that  man  is 
a  wonderfully  complex  being  and  that 
the  various  bodies  he  inhabits  are  but 
sections  of  the  complex  whole,  each 
playing  a  distinct  part  in  the  total  of 
the  life  functions.  Perhaps  it  may  help 
him  to  remember  the  complexity  of 
the  physical  body,  considered  by  itself. 
It,  alone,  is  composed  of  various  grades 


94         Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

of  matter,  each  of  them  being  a  section 
of  the  physical  body  and  giving  us  an 
outline  of  it.  There  is,  first,  the  dense 
matter  of  the  bones.  They  are  the 
frame-work  for  the  rest  and  give  us 
the  body  in  outline,  but  the  skeleton 
is  not  the  body.  Then  there  is  a  dif- 
ferent grade  of  matter  which  we  call 
flesh.  It  also  represents  the  form  of 
the  body  but  it  is  far  from  being  the 
whole  body.  Then  we  have  the  nerves. 
If  a  diagram  of  the  nervous  system 
were  made,  with  each  nerve  in  its 
proper  place,  we  should  have  again  a 
perfect  outline  of  the  human  form. 
But  these  nerves  are  not  the  body, — 
only  a  'section  of  it  performing  a  dis- 
tinct office.  Then  there  is  also  the 
fluid  which  we  call  the  blood.  If  it 
could  be  suddenly  stopped  in  its  circu- 
lation, instantly  frozen,  and  all  of  the 
particles  in  the  capillaries  were  to  re- 
main where  they  were  at  the  instant 
that  circulation  was  suspended  while 


Conquering  Delusions  95 

all  the  rest  of  the  matter  of  the  body 
should,  by  some  magic,  vanish,  we 
would  still  have  the  human  form  per- 
fectly outlined  by  the  blood  that  cir- 
culates in  it.  Yet  because  the  blood 
outlines  the  human  form  it  is  not  the 
body.  It  is  only  another  section  of 
the  complex  whole  known  as  the  physi- 
cal body.  It  requires  all  these  sec- 
tions, and  requires  them  all  interlaced 
and  performing  different  functions,  to 
constitute  the  physical  body. 

Now,  it  is  no  more  erroneous  to 
think  of  any  one  of  these  different 
sections  of  the  body,  each  with  its 
specific  work  to  do,  as  being  the  physi- 
cal body  than  to  think  of  any  one  of 
the  bodies  of  man  as  being  the  man. 
Just  as  all  these  grades  of  physical 
matter,  each  carrying  forward  its  par- 
ticular set  of  activities  from  birth  to 
death,  are  required  to  make  up  the 
physical  body,  to  constitute  the  mech- 
anism through  which  the  man  func- 


96        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

tions  on  the  physical  plane,  so  are  the 
different  bodies  through  which  we 
function  in  the  various  planes  required 
to  express  the  whole  range  of  the  ego's 
activities  in  the  three  worlds  in  which 
we  simultaneously  exist.  The  physical, 
the  astral,  the  lower  mental  and  the 
causal  bodies,  should  be  thought  of  as 
four  separable  parts  or  sections  of  one 
complex  whole,  but  not  as  the  man 
himself;  the  ego,  the  self,  being  the  in- 
dividualized portion  of  the  universal 
consciousness  functioning  through 
them  all. 

Another  way  in  which  one  can 
achieve  some  degree  of  success  in  free- 
ing oneself  from  delusions  is  to  remem- 
ber that  the  physical  senses  are  very 
unreliable  interpreters  of  facts  and  that 
in  the  simplest  of  things  they  mislead 
us.  The  physical  senses  tell  us  that  the 
earth  is  stationary  and  that  the  sun, 
as  well  as  the  moon,  moves  about  it. 
We  have  to  fall  back  upon  our  reason, 


Conquering  Delusions  97 

make  mechanical  measurements  and 
careful  comparisons  of  various  facts, 
before  we  can  free  ourselves  from  this 
particular  deception  of  the  physical 
senses;  and  many  people  never  do  get 
free  from  it.  If  we  look  at  a  straight 
log  that  lies  on  the  bank  of  a  stream 
with  one  end  submerged  in  the  clear 
water,  the  eye  reports  to  us  that  the  log 
is  bent  at  the  point  where  it  enters  the 
water.  If  two  trains  are  standing  side 
by  side  and  we  are  on  one  while  the 
other  begins  to  move  slowly  the  eye 
falsely  reports  to  the  consciousness  that 
our  own  train  is  moving.  If  we  cross 
the  first  and  second  fingers  of  the  hand 
and  then  roll  a  marble  back  and  forth 
across  the  finger  tips  the  sense  of  touch 
falsely  informs  us  that  there  are  two 
marbles  instead  of  one.  Many  facts 
and  experiences  may  be  cited  to  show 
the  utter  unreliability  of  the  testimony 
of  the  physical  senses.  The  student 
should  keep  it  steadily  in  mind  that 


98         Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

just  as  we  are  thus  misled  by  the  physi- 
cal senses  in  these  matters  so  are  we 
deceived  by  them  in  other  and  more 
important  affairs;  and  just  as  one  may 
hold  the  mental  picture  of  the  earth  be- 
ing spherical  and  moving  about  the  sun 
until  the  idea  of  it  being  flat  and  sta- 
tionary becomes  unnatural  and  absurd 
so  can  he  think  the  truth  about  the 
interpenetrating  relationship  of  the  va- 
rious bodies  in  which  he  functions  un- 
til the  old  delusions  disappear  and 
trouble  him  no  longer.  The  physical 
body  becomes  to  him  in  reality  an  in- 
strument that  he  is  using,  a  vehicle  in 
which  he  is  moving  about  and  through 
which  he  communicates  with  others  in 
his  daily  activities.  Slowly  but  surely 
this  fact  becomes  established  in  his  con- 
sciousness, and  he  has  taken  an  im- 
portant step  in  discrimination  between 
the  real  and  the  unreal. 


CHAPTER  XL 

FAULTS  TO  BE  GUARDED 
AGAINST 

When  a  person  who  comes  into  the 
study  of  Theosophy  begins  to  see  its 
power  and  beauty  in  re-shaping  the 
lives  of  those  who  endeavor  to  prac- 
tice its  precepts,  it  is  not  strange  that 
he  should  become  enthusiastic  in  his 
efforts  to  interest  others  in  it,  or  that 
he  should  develop  a  strong  feeling  of 
partisanship  for  it. 

But  in  this  direction  lies  a  subtle 
danger — the  danger  of  becoming  dog- 
matic and  thus  stifling  spiritual  growth. 
Whoever  falls  into  that  error  has  put 
an  end  to  his  own  progress.  It  is 
true  that  Theosophy  is  a  study  of  life 
so  comprehensive  in  its  sublime  reach 


100       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

that  it  includes  all  religions;  but  this 
very  fact  should  teach  the  student  tol- 
erance, rather  than  give  him  a  feeling 
that  Theosophy  is  the  only  thing  need- 
ed for  the  salvation  of  the  world.  It 
should  not  be  forgotten  that  until  a 
person  has  reached  a  certain  point  in 
human  evolution  Theosophy  can  do 
nothing  for  him — cannot  even  arrest 
his  attention — and  that  he  reaches  that 
particular  point  in  his  development 
through  some  of  the  religious  or  philo- 
sophical movements  from  which  he 
finally  graduates  into  Theosophy. 
Therefore  the  organized  moral  and 
intellectual  movements  of  various  kinds 
that  fill  the  world  bear  somewhat  the 
relationship  to  Theosophy  that  private 
and  public  schools  of  all  descriptions 
bear  to  the  university.  For  a  student 
of  occultism  to  assume  the  attitude 
which  indicates  a  belief  that  Theosophy 
is  a  thing  to  supplant  all  religious  de- 
nominations— that  it  is  the  one  and 


Faults  to  Be  Guarded  Against        101 

only  thing  required  by  humanity — 
would  be  much  like  insisting  that  all 
common  schools  be  raised  tomorrow  to 
the  university  level.  One  of  the  really 
beautiful  things  about  Theosophy  is 
its  breadth  and  tolerance ;  and  it  is 
only  when  its  devotees  shape  their 
course  by  that  spirit  of  tolerance  that 
progress  is  possible  for  them.  The- 
osophy is '  not  a  thing  that  requires 
partisanship.  It  wins  its  way  by  its 
inherent  reasonableness,  not  by  the  ve- 
hemence with  which  it  is  urged. 

The  disposition  to  too  strongly  argue 
the  benefits  of  Theosophy  is  an  error 
to  be  avoided.  We  have  only  to  ob- 
serve one  orthodox  religionist  arguing 
the  superiority  of  his  denomination  to 
all  others  to  know  how  ineffective  it 
is  with  his  opponent,  who  is  equally 
sure  of  the  superiority  of  his  faith. 
Neither  of  them  is  learning  anything. 
Each  is  only  wondering  why  the  other 
insists  upon  using  more  than  his  share 


102       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

of  the  time!  Now,  the  student  of 
occultism  should  never  permit  himself 
to  drop  into  that  antagonistic  mental 
condition.  It  is  an  attitude  that  closes 
the  mind  to  truth.  The  reverse  of  that 
mental  condition  should  be  character- 
istic of  the  occult  student.  He  should 
always  be  receptive  to  truth.  He 
should,  indeed,  be  always  eagerly  alert 
for  a  new  idea,  for  a  new  point  of 
view  from  which  to  look  at  any  par- 
ticular fact.  He  should  not  be  as  one 
who  has  a  certain  doctrine  to  defend 
and  is  always  suspicious  of  any  new 
fact  or  idea,  his  first  feeling  being  a 
fear  that  it  may  endanger  his  belief. 
One's  first  thought  should  not  be 
"Does  this  new  idea  support  my  the- 
ory" but  "Is  it  true?"  It  is  only  by 
such  an  attitude  of  mind  that  truth 
can  be  recognized  when  it  is  encoun- 
tered and  the  student  of  occultism  is, 
above  all  things,  a  truth  seeker.  He 
has  nothing  to  fear  about  any  possible 


Faults  to  Be  Guarded  Against        103 

antagonism  between  his  belief  and  the 
facts.  He  knows  that  if  there  is  any 
apparent  disagreement  there  is  some- 
thing wrong  either  with  his  conception 
of  theosophical  principles  or  his  under- 
standing of  the  facts;  and  he  sets  to 
work  to  think  out  the  solution  and  ad- 
just himself  to  the  truth.  Thus  shall 
he  constantly  grow  in  wisdom  and 
understanding. 

But  there  is  another  fault  to  be 
guarded  against  even  more  carefully 
than  the  inclination  toward  militant 
and  dogmatic  defense  of  one's  beliefs, 
and  it  presents  greater  difficulties  be- 
cause it  lies  more  deeply  rooted  within 
the  personality.  This  is  the  disposition 
to  resent  personal  criticism  and  to  de- 
fend oneself  with  such  vigor  that  little 
or  no  consideration  is  given  to  the 
criticism.  It  is  the  most  common,  as 
well  as  the  most  personally  injurious, 
course  that  people  take.  It  is,  once 
more,  the  mental  attitude  that  closes 


104       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

the  mind  to  truth,  and  to  the  very 
truth  that  is  perhaps  most  needed. 
There  is  an  occult  maxim  that  "every 
contact  is  an  opportunity."  It  is  also 
true  that  every  contact  with  another 
furnishes  us  a  teacher,  but  that  we 
usually  foolishly  reject  the  teaching 
when  it  touches  our  vanity  or  pride. 
The  true  student  of  occultism  is  as  will- 
ing to  learn  from  babes  as  from  sages. 
He  tries  to  keep  an  open  mind,  always 
at  attention,  always  receptive  to  truth 
regardless  of  the  source  and  regard- 
less of  how  it  may  affect  him  person- 
ally. He  should  not  only  welcome  crit- 
icism but  should  regard  the  critic  as 
his  friend  and  teacher.  If  he  is  wise 
he  will  extract  a  valuable  lesson  from 
the  criticism.  He  will  think  it  calmly 
over  and  try  to  get  his  critic's  point  of 
view.  If  he  can  see  that  there  was 
good  ground  for  the  criticism  he  will 
set  to  work  at  once  to  eliminate  the 
fault  on  which  it  was  based.  If  he 


Faults  to  Be  Guarded  Against       105 

cannot  find  cause  for  the  criticism,  and 
reaches  the  conclusion  that  it  was  un- 
just, he  will  understand  that  his  own 
false  judgments  of  others  are  reacting 
upon  him  and  will  try  henceforth  to 
be  more  careful  and  considerate. 

Undue  partisanship  of  our  beliefs 
shuts  out  the  truth,  and  dogmatism 
bars  the  way  to  our  further  progress. 
Foolish  sensitiveness  about  personal 
criticism  likewise  closes  the  mind  to 
truth  and  leaves  us  firmly  clinging  to 
the  very  faults  that  prevent  our  spir- 
itual development. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  WRONG   ROAD   AND 
THE  RIGHT  ONE 

Old  sayings  often  contain  great  wis- 
dom. That  is  why  they  are  old.  If 
they  were  not  the  vehicles  of  wisdom 
they  would  have  died  young.  They 
survive  through  the  centuries  because 
they  are  successful  teachers.  Their 
age  is  equal  to  their  utility.  One  of 
these  old  maxims  should  have  the  re- 
spectful consideration  of  students  of 
occultism.  This  ancient  saying  runs 
like  this :  "The  longest  way  around  is 
the  shortest  way  home."  It  is  a  sage 
warning  against  injudicious  haste.  It 
is  a  concise  statement  of  the  fact  that 
human  experience  has  demonstrated 
that  it  is  unwise  to  take  "short  cuts" 
to  a  given  destination  instead  of  fol- 


The  Wrong  and  Right  Road          107 

lowing  the  well  established  road;  and 
that  the  desire  to  save  time  is  liable 
in  the  end  to  lead  not  only  to  the  loss 
of  time  but  to  invite  disaster,  also. 

Now,  there  is  probably  no  field  of 
activity  where  this  is  so  true  as  it  is 
in  the  study  of  occultism.  The  stu- 
dent is  likely  to  be  strongly  attracted 
towards  psychic  development  and  to 
find  himself  ardently  desiring  to  pos- 
sess the  power  of  clairvoyance,  and 
this  desire  may  tempt  him  to  abandon 
the  longer  but  safer  way.  It  is  well 
to  desire  the  opening  of  the  inner  fac- 
ulties in  order  that  one  may  become 
more  efficient  and  useful  in  the  great 
work  of  uplifting  the  race;  but  it  is 
a  sad  misfortune  to  make  it  an  end  in 
itself  and  thus  lose  sight  of  more  im- 
portant things  in  the  effort  to  attain  it. 
Such  a  desire  may  tempt  the  unwary 
into  the  by-way  of  artificial  develop- 
ment— and  the  slough  of  despond  and 
disaster  that  lies  at  the  farther  end  of 


108       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

it.  Be  content  with  the  upward  path, 
though  the  hills  are  rugged  and  the 
climbing  is  slow  and  difficult.  It  is 
the  shortest  way  home. 

As  a  matter  of  simple  fact  there  are 
more  important  things  than  clairvoy- 
ance to  be  developed  by  the  student  of 
occultism — things  tremendously  more 
important.  Without  them  clairvoyance 
is  but  a  dangerous  instrument  to  pos- 
sess ;  with  them,  the  inner  faculties  will 
open  as  a  matter  of  course, — will  open 
as  a  flower  unfolds  before  the  rising 
sun. 

The  psyhcism  that  dazzles  many  peo- 
ple and  appears  so  wonderful  and  de- 
sirable— the  faculty  that  enables  the 
psychic  to  describe  another's  character- 
istics, to  trace  a  little  of  his  past  and 
to  foretell  a  few  future  events — is  of 
extremely  small  and  uncertain  value. 
It  is  rarely,  if  ever,  under  control  and 
direction  of  the  psychic  and  is  no  more 
like  the  higher  clairvoyance  used  in  oc- 


The  Wrong  and  Eight  Road          109 

cult  investigation  than  a  flaw  in  a  win- 
dow-pane that  happens  to  magnify  the 
stars  seen  through  it,  is  like  the  astron- 
omer's telescope  that  sweeps  the 
heavens  with  scientific  accuracy.  Such 
minor  psychic  faculty  does  not  imply 
spirituality  any  more  than  the  ability 
to  hypnotize  implies  it,  and  may  be  pos- 
sessed by  the  good  or  the  bad  just  as 
intellect  is.  Perhaps  its  chief  merit  lies 
in  the  fact  that  it  has  served  to  arouse 
many  people  to  an  interest  in  occultism 
and  has  impelled  them  to  an  investiga- 
tion that  has  led  them  away  from  ma- 
terialism. 

Even  if  the  occult  student,  at  the 
peril  of  his  health  and  at  the  risk  of 
generating  unfortunate  karma  that 
may  retard  his  higher  development  for 
several  incarnations,  acquires  this 
lower  psychic  faculty  it  will  avail  him 
little  in  added  ability  to  gain  knowl- 
edge. Lacking  the  training  necessary 
for  accurate  observation  and  interpre- 


110       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

tation  he  is  as  helpless,  for  all  prac- 
tical purposes,  as  an  uneducated  man 
would  be  in  possession  of  a  chemist's 
laboratory.  He  would  have  reached 
such  minor  psychic  development  only 
after  giving  it  much  time  and  attention 
that  could  have  been  turned  to  far  bet- 
ter account  in  another  direction  where 
it  would  have  resulted  in  permanent 
gain  of  the  greatest  value  to  him.  The 
value  of  the  slight  psychic  ability  that 
is  exhibited  by  the  fortune-telling  va- 
riety of  clairvoyant,  and  that  is  chiefly 
used  for  commercial  purposes,  is  very 
greatly  exaggerated.  Because  a  few 
things  are  accurately  given  us  we  get 
the  erroneous  impression  that  our 
whole  future  lies  open  to  the  psychic 
and  that  he  could,  with  perfect  ease, 
forecast  any  part  of  it.  At  the  same 
time  we  pay  but  little  attention  to  the 
things  about  which  he  is  altogether  in 
error,  so  strongly  are  we  impressed 
with  that  which  is  correct.  The  actual 


The  Wrong  and  Bight  Road          111 

value  of  this  degree  of  clairvoyance, 
or  of  mediumship,  as  the  case  may  be, 
is  but  little,  if  any  above  that  of  palm- 
istry. The  skillful  palmist,  without 
possessing  a  trace  of  clairvoyance,  can 
read  from  the  open  hand  nearly  as 
much  of  the  life  record  of  the  past,  and 
the  life  plan  of  the  future,  as  can  a 
person  possessed  of  this  minor  psychic 
development,  and  with  less  liability  of 
error.  Of  course  the  psychic  gets  a 
somewhat  different  class  of  facts,  a 
little  more  of  detail,  perhaps,  than  the 
skilled  palmist,  yet  nothing  more  re- 
markable and  certainly  not  of  greater 
accuracy  or  value  than  the  capable 
palmist  is  able  to  give. 

With  nothing  of  real  value  to  gain, 
but  with  the  possibility  of  losing  much 
in  the  effort  to  acquire  that  uncertain 
and  impermanent  little,  it  is  clearly 
enough  a  foolish  thing  to  give  time  and 
energy  to  such  development.  Many 
persons  have  tried  this  supposed 


112       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

"shorter  way"  to  their  sorrow,  and  by 
a  certain  kind  of  peculiar  breathing  ex- 
ercise, or  other  method,  have  succeeded 
in  gaining  astral  sight  and  also  in 
wrecking  the  nervous  system  and  de- 
stroying health  and  happiness  for  the 
remainder  of  this  life.  Sometimes  it 
happens  that  by  such  artificial  devel- 
opment astral  sight  is  gained  on  the 
lower  levels  of  the  astral  region,  only 
for  the  experimenter  to  find  to  his  hor- 
ror that  he  cannot  then  control  it  and 
must,  against  his  will,  remain  conscious 
of  unpleasant  things.  He  finds,  when 
it  is  too  late,  that  he  has  made  haste 
unwisely  and  has  done  worse  than 
merely  waste  time.  He  has  not  only 
failed  to  find  what  is  truly  the  shortest 
way  home  but  he  may  easily  entangle 
himself  in  difficulties  that  may  prove  a 
handicap  on  the  right  road  when  he 
finally  comes  to  a  realization  of  his 
error  and  resolves  to  set  out  properly 
on  the  forward  journey. 


The  Wrong  and  Eight  Boad          113 

But  what  is  this  longer  way  around 
that  is  really  the  shortest  way  home? 
It  is  the  development  of  the  spiritual 
nature,  and  it  is  only  apparently  the 
longer  way  on  account  of  the  delusion 
regarding  the  supposed  shorter  one. 
This  method  instead  of  dealing  with 
psychism  gives  its  attention  entirely  to 
spirituality;  and  instead  of  regarding 
the  present  life  as  the  field  of  opera- 
tions its  outlook  is  from  the  viewpoint 
of  the  ego's  general  and  continuous 
welfare,  and  necessarily  extends  over 
many  lives.  In  other  words  it  takes 
into  consideration  the  whole  of  the 
journey  instead  of  a  little  fragment  of 
it  and  refuses  to  sacrifice  the  welfare 
of  the  future  to  the  whim  of  the  pres- 
ent. And  just  here  is  one  of  the  points 
that  the  student  should  keep  always  in 
mind, — the  necessity  of  thinking  of 
more  than  one  incarnation  at  a  time, 
for  if  he  did  only  that  his  plans  for  his 
development  would  thus  be  greatly 


114       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

limited  and  narrowed.  He  should  try 
to  free  himself  from  the  idea  that  death 
is  in  any  way  the  end  of  the  program 
and  endeavor  to  accustom  himself  to 
the  thought  that  it  is  merely  an  inci- 
dent, a  change,  as  finishing  a  given  task 
or  retiring  for  an  afternoon  nap  is  a 
change  in  the  day's  routine.  He  should 
keep  it  steadily  in  mind  that  there  is 
no  death;  that  there  are  only  various 
states  of  consciousness  and  that  one 
who  is  following  out  a  consistent  plan 
of  evolutionary  development  may  carry 
it  along  from  life  to  life,  thus  moving 
forward  with  constantly  accelerating 
speed.  He  should  think  of,  and  plan 
for,  the  far  away  future, — never  alone 
for  the  few  years  that  may  perhaps  re- 
main of  the  present  incarnation. 

With  a  view  then  to  permanent,  in- 
stead of  temporary  results,  let  the  at- 
tention be  turned  to  the  work  of  spir- 
itual development,  to  the  elimination 
of  one's  undesirable  characteristics,  to 


The  Wrong  and  Bight  Road          115 

the  purification  of  the  lower  nature,  to 
the  task  of  bringing  the  whole  of  the 
activities  of  the  waking  consciousness 
into  harmony  with  the  loftiest  ideals 
one  can  conceive.  This  is  the  apparent- 
ly longer  way  around  which  is  really 
the  short  and  sure  way  home.  On  this 
road  we  may  travel  as  rapidly  as  we 
choose.  The  rapidity  of  our  progress 
will  depend  entirely  upon  the  earnest- 
ness and  the  energy  put  into  the  work 
and  when  the  right  time  comes,  or, 
speaking  more  accurately,  when  the 
right  inner  condition  is  attained,  astral 
sight  will  come  as  a  natural  result  and 
be  a  blessing  instead  of  a  curse. 

One  thing  that  the  aspirant  for  spir- 
itual development  should  never  forget 
is  that  he  does  not  work  alone.  He 
probably  will,  for  a  considerable  time, 
be  unconscious  of  the  fact  that  any 
other  being  in  the  universe  has  the 
slightest  interest  in  his  efforts.  And 
this  is  well;  for  one  of  the  lessons  he 


116       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

is  learning  is  to  stand  alone  and  perse- 
vere. But  the  fact  is  that  every  as- 
piration is  known  and  every  effort  is 
observed.  Just  as  much  help  is  given 
as  the  aspirant  is  able  to  receive,  and 
long  before  he  knows  it  in  his  waking 
consciousness  the  earnest  student  is, 
during  the  hours  of  sleep,  receiving 
instruction  on  the  inner  planes.  With- 
out such  help  spiritual  progress  would 
be  practically  impossible;  and  an  ex- 
tremely important  thing  to  remember 
is  that  we  can  get  help  only  as  we  de- 
serve it.  Now,  we  deserve  it  in  pro- 
portion that  we  give  it;  and  this  is 
why  it  is  that  to  "forget  oneself  in  the 
service  of  others"  is  a  wiser  course 
than  to  give  time  and  energy  to  de- 
veloping psychic  faculties  for  our  own 
satisfaction  that  are  of  no  real  value 
to  anybody.  Some  of  us  have  heard 
it  said  by  others  farther  along  on  the 
road  that  "it  is  precisely  when  we  are 
thinking  least  about  ourselves  that  we 


The  Wrong  and  Bight  Boad         117 

are  making  the  greatest  progress/' 
Try  hard  to  be  useful,  to  deserve  much, 
rather  than  to  secure  entertaining  fac- 
ulties for  the  personal  satisfaction  it 
may  give. 

While  the  development  of  clairvoy- 
ance is  so  attractive  to  many  we  seldom 
hear  questions  asked  about  how  to  de- 
velop intuition, — a  matter  of  very  much 
greater  importance.  Developing  the 
intuition  is  a  process  of  illuminating 
the  lower  personality  with  the  light  of 
the  higher  self  and  it  comes  about  by 
pure  living  and  lofty  thinking.  Intui- 
tion is  from  a  high  level  of  the  inner 
worlds — from  the  source  of  wisdom — 
and  it  is  the  ability  of  rising  to  such 
spiritual  heights,  of  bringing  into  the 
physical  consciousness  such  unerring 
insight,  that  the  student  of  occultism 
should  strive  for  instead  of  for  the  de- 
velopment of  psychic  faculties.  When 
the  art  of  thus  controlling  and  purify- 
ing thought  and  desire  is  attained  the 


118       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

awakening  of  the  spiritual  powers  will 
follow.  "All  things  come  to  him  who 
waits'' — and  works. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

TOLERANCE 

The  cultivation  of  a  broad  tolerance 
is  necessary  for  one  who  would  make 
any  intellectual  and  moral  progress. 
Intolerance  fetters  the  soul.  It  erects 
barriers  between  us  and  others  and 
clouds  the  vision  instead  of  illuminat- 
ing the  understanding.  It  limits  our 
opportunities  and  narrows  our  field  of 
experience.  Now,  experience  is  the 
great  teacher — the  master  instructor  in 
the  evolutionary  school.  It  is  through 
experience  that  we  evolve,  that  we 
reach  the  higher  stages  of  development. 
The  difference  between  the  ignorant, 
uncouth  and  depraved,  and  the  enlight- 
ened, refined  and  noble,  is  the  result 
of  thought  and  emotion  working  on 
the  experiences  that  arouse  them, 


120       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

Thought  and  experience,  acting  and  re- 
acting on  each  other,  are  the  great  char- 
acter builders.  At  a  lower  stage  of  evo- 
lution the  experience  arouses  thought 
and  we  get  a  lesson  we  did  not  seek 
by  making  mental  deductions  from  the 
experience,  as  for  example,  when  one 
has  thoughtlessly  gone  out  on  a  cold 
day  without  adequate  clothing  and  suf- 
fered in  consequence,  and,  reflecting 
upon  it  afterward,  learns  at  least  a 
little  in  the  development  of  caution.  At 
a  higher  stage  of  evolution  thought 
takes  precedence  and  we  deliberately 
search  out  that  within  us  which  needs 
strengthening  and  as  deliberately  seeK 
the  experience  required  to  develop  the 
desired  virtue,  as  when,  after  deciding 
that  we  are  deficient  in  compassion  we 
set  about  cultivating  it  by  visiting  the 
sick  and  the  bereaved.  But  whether 
experience  comes  first  or  last  it  is  an 
indispensable  factor  in  human  progress 
and  soul  development,  and  whatever  re- 


Tolerance  121 

stricts  our  experience  delays  our  evo- 
lution. 

While  religious  intolerance  is  a  very 
pronounced  form  of  this  vice — a  term 
none  too  strong  for  a  thing  so  detri- 
mental to  human  welfare — we  should 
not  forget  that,  in  one  form  or  another, 
there  is  more  intolerance  in  the  average 
person  and,  indeed,  even  in  the  fairly 
liberal  and  progressive  man,  than  most 
of  us  would  be  willing  to  admit.  In 
many  directions  this  deadly  moral 
nightshade  extends  its  branches.  There 
is  race  intolerance,  national  intolerance, 
class  intolerance  and,  insidious  and  far- 
reaching  in  its  evil  effects,  the  more 
common  form  of  intolerance  which  we 
know  as  self -righteousness,  that  leads 
a  person  to  place  false  emphasis  on  the 
weaknesses  of  others  and  remain  blind 
to  his  own.  Many  people  have  passed 
the  point  where  they  have  any  preju- 
dice against  a  person  because  he  is  of 
another  race  and  color:  have  reached 


122       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

the  degree  of  enlightenment  that  en- 
ables them  to  look  upon  a  man  of  an- 
other nationality  as  they  regard  a  fel- 
low countryman;  have  learned  to  feel 
no  prejudice  against  another  because 
he  is  of  a  different  class  or  of  a  higher 
or  lower  walk  of  life,  as  the  case  may 
be;  have  reached  the  degree  of  under- 
standing that  enables  them,  no  matter 
what  their  own  station  is,  to  see  all  peo- 
ple as  one;  to  look  with  an  impartial 
eye  upon  the  richest  and  the  poorest, 
the  learned  and  the  ignorant,  as  differ- 
ent members  of  the  universal  family, 
each  entitled  to  the  most  courteous  con- 
sideration;— many  people  are  able  to 
do  all  this,  and  yet  when  it  comes  to 
dealing  with  various  grades  of  moral 
weaknesses  they  exhibit  a  self-right- 
eous intolerance  that  is  a  bar  to  spir- 
itual progress.  There  are  certain 
forms,  or  classes,  of  moral  weaknesses 
with  which  they  will  have  nothing  to 
'do  and  toward  their  unfortunate  broth- 


Tolerance  123 

ers  and  sisters  afflicted  with  these  moral 
flaws  they  assume  an  attitude  of  lofty 
disdain.  Many  a  man  who  is  broad- 
minded  and  progressive  regards  a  thief 
or  a  degenerate  as  being  beyond  the 
pale  of  consideration,  while  many  a 
liberal  and  sympathetic  woman  regards 
her  fallen  sister  with  equal  intolerance 
and  draws  her  skirts  aside,  as  she 
passes,  with  frank  contempt.  And  so 
it  is  that  thousands  of  us  who  are  swift 
to  condemn  the  intolerance  of  religious 
bigotry  are  still  blind  to  the  fact  that 
we  are,  ourselves,  equally  intolerant 
when  it  comes  to  matters  of  a  differ- 
ent sort. 

Now,  it  is  when  we  have  conquered 
intolerance  in  its  commoner  forms  and 
are  ready  for  the  higher  work  of  over- 
coming the  subtler  variety,  that  great 
spiritual  lessons  can  come  to  us  through 
the  very  people  against  whom,  through 
our  intolerance,  we  are  closing  the  gates 
of  our  sympathy.  If  we  do  not  erect 


124:       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

the  barrier  of  intolerance  and  thus  com- 
pletely separate  ourselves  from  them — 
if  we  do  not  thus  limit  our  field  of 
experience  by  our  foolish  prejudice — 
we  shall  find  that  from  the  sympathetic 
consideration  we  give  them  will  spring 
a  wider  wisdom  than  we  now  possess. 
The  great  work  that  lies  before  every 
evolving  soul  is  nothing  less  than  the 
comprehension  of  life  in  all  its  forms 
and  varieties,  the  understanding  of  the 
universe  and  the  acquirement  of  com- 
passion; and  every  barrier  that  stands 
in  the  way  of  that  must  be  broken 
down.  To  permit  any  lingering  in- 
tolerance to  narrow  and  blind  us  in  our 
spiritual  unfoldment  would  be  some- 
thing like  the  blunder  of  a  man  who 
desires  to  be  a  great  painter  harboring 
such  a  prejudice  against  a  certain  col- 
or that  he  would  have  nothing  to  do 
with  it.  He  would  thus  be  shutting 
out  a  factor  in  his  artistic  development 
that  would  be  absolutely  fatal  to  his 


Tolerance  125 

ultimate  success  and  all  his  work  would 
be  marred  and  his  progress  in  art 
would  be  barred  by  that  foolish  preju- 
dice until  he  got  rid  of  it.  Red  may 
not  be  as  pleasing  a  color  as  blue,  but 
both  are  equally  the  result  of  the  divi- 
sion of  a  pure  white  ray  of  light  by  a 
prism  and  each  is  essential  to  the  har- 
mony of  colors.  Even  so  is  every  hu- 
man personality  the  result  of  trying 
to  manifest  inherent  divinity  through 
the  medium  of  matter  and  its  differing 
expressions  must  be  studied  and  under- 
stood before  we  can  comprehend  the 
harmony  of  the  whole. 

Between  intolerance  and  self -right- 
eousness there  is  a  most  intimate  rela- 
tionship and  the  highest  of  spiritual  au- 
thorities has  pointed  out  the  subtle  evil 
that  lurks  therein.  Perhaps  many  good 
people  will  never  cease  wondering 
about  the  utterances  of  the  Christ  as 
He  rebuked  the  Pharisees  and  mingled 
with  the  publicans  and  sinners,  declar- 


126       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

ing  the  latter  to  be  much  nearer  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  than  the  self-right- 
eous. But  to  the  student  of  occultism 
this  truth  must  be  as  clear  as  the  sun- 
light. A  feeling  of  separateness  is  the 
sin  of  sins  and  the  most  difficult  to 
overcome.  The  sinners  from  whom 
the  self-righteous  drew  back  in  horror 
doubtless  had  the  heart  side  of  their 
natures  much  more  highly  evolved  than 
their  haughty  critics  had,  and  although 
they  were  at  the  moment  showing  forth 
a  moral  weakness  to  be  condemned, 
they  would,  in  the  natural  course  of 
things,  evolve  out  of  that  much  more 
quickly  than  those  who  looked  upon 
them  with  intolerant  contempt  would 
be  able  to  get  rid  of  that  flaw.  To  put 
the  case  differently  it  was  just  because 
this  particular  class  of  sinners  repre- 
sented a  lower  form  of  iniquity  than 
self -righteousness  that  the  public  was 
able  to  recognize  it  as  a  sin,  and  it  was 
precisely  because  self -righteousness  was 


Tolerance  127 

a  more  subtle  (and  therefore  more 
dangerous)  form  of  iniquity  that  the 
people  did  not  recognize  it  as  a  sin 
at  all. 

Why  is  intolerance  such  a  dangerous 
thing?  For  one  reason  because  by  plac- 
ing undue  emphasis  on  the  fault  against 
which  the  line  of  exclusion  is  drawn 
without  mercy  or  consideration,  we  be- 
come blind  to  the  good  qualities  of 
which  no  human  being  is  destitute,  and 
thus  ignore  the  very  thing  for  which 
we  should  always  be  searching  and 
which  we  should  emphasize  and  en- 
courage. We  permit  the  one  bad  qual- 
ity to  hypnotize  us,  so  to  speak,  by 
steadily  regarding  it  until  our  moral 
judgment  is  unbalanced,  as  a  man  gazes 
at  a  black  spot  on  a  white  wall  until 
certain  muscles  are  fatigued,  and  hyp- 
nosis is  induced.  Even  so  do  the  in- 
tolerant paralyze  perception  and  be- 
come blind  to  the  good. 

The  remedy  for  intolerance  is  to  re- 


128       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

member  that  all  life  is  one;  that  those 
about  us  are  literally  ourselves  in  other 
forms  and  that  at  a  high  point  on  the 
inner  planes  consciousness  is  a  unit. 
We  are  individuals  and  yet  we  are 
one,  as  the  fingers  are  separate  and 
yet  one  in  consciousness,  so  that  one 
of  them  cannot  suffer  without  affect- 
ting  the  one  consciousness  that  directs 
all.  The  body  is  no  more  the  self  than 
one  finger  is  the  hand.  The  universal 
Self  is  being  expressed  through  many 
forms,  each  of  which  expresses  but  a 
fragment  of  the  one  consciousness,  and 
if  one  of  these  apparently  separate 
selves  regards  another  with  self-right- 
eous intolerance  a  subtle  injury  is  done 
which  is  somewhat  analogous  to  the 
wound  one  hand  might  inflict  upon  the 
other. 

A  helpful  method  in  eliminating  in- 
tolerance, in  breaking  down  the  sepa- 
rating walls,  is  to  deliberately  search 
for  the  good  in  everything  and  every- 


Tolerance  129 

body;  to  remember  that  there  is  no- 
body who  does  not  embody  some  vir- 
tue. The  good  and  the  bad,  or  strength 
and  weakness,  are  mingled  in  all.  The 
distinction  is  that  the  weaknesses  dif- 
fer in  the  manner  of  their  expression. 
Some  weaknesses  are  more  unpopular 
than  others,  that's  all ;  and  that  is  what 
determines  the  moral  code.  One  robs 
a  stranger  but  would  defend  his  friends 
with  his  life.  Another  breaks  no  law, 
but  would  sneak  away  at  the  first  sign 
of  danger  to  himself  and  leave  his 
friends  to  perish.  One  gives  way  to 
the  lust  of  drunkenness,  but  is  always 
the  friend  of  other  people.  Another 
is  a  model  of  sobriety  but  will  meanly 
spread  the  gossip  of  his  friend's  shame. 
One  is  quick  in  temper  and  engages  in 
a  street  brawl,  but  a  moment  later 
shakes  hands  with  his  antagonist.  An- 
other would  do  nothing  so  disgraceful, 
but  when  offended  bullies  and  insults 
the  timid  in  a  way  that  satisfies  his 


130       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

anger  and  proves  his  cowardice.  And 
so  it  goes  throughout  the  whole  list 
of  human  weaknesses.  Some  classes 
of  faults  are  more  unpopular  than 
others  largely  because  they  are  more  on 
the  surface ;  and,  as  a  rule,  those  who 
are  most  intolerant  of  the  frailties  of 
others  are  precisely  those  who,  in  other 
directions,  are  morally  lame  themselves. 
But  there  is  good  in  all;  even  in  the 
intolerant ! 

Tolerance  is  a  noble  virtue,  and  a 
cornerstone  in  the  temple  not  built  with 
hands.  Upon  it  must  rest  other  virtues 
to  be  acquired.  Tolerance  precedes  en- 
lightenment as  the  dawn  precedes  the 
day.  It  dispels  the  darkness  of  our 
ignorance  about  others  and  illuminates 
the  road  that  leads  to  peace.  It  is 
the  gateway  to  universal  brotherhood. 
Without  tolerance  there  can  be  no  jus- 
tice. With  tolerance  there  can  be  no 
cruelty.  It  is  the  herald  of  mercy  and 
the  prophecy  of  dawning  compassion. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 
PURITY 

Purity  is  a  word  that  signifies  much 
in  occultism.  We  encounter  it  often, 
for  there  can  be  no  spiritual  progress 
that  does  not  reckon  with  it.  A  striv- 
ing after  purity  is  one  of  the  absolute 
essentials  to  higher  development.  There 
can  be  no  real  spiritual  illumination 
without  it,  no  matter  what  other  quali- 
fications may  be  possessed. 

The  essential  difference  between  a 
spiritual  person  and  the  man  of  the 
world  is  that  the  latter  lives  largely 
in  his  physical  senses.  At  a  low  point 
in  evolution — the  savage  state — he  lives 
altogether  in  the  physical  senses.  He 
is  completely  dominated  by  physical  de- 
sires, passions  and  emotions.  It  is  the 
triumph  of  matter.  As  evolution  goes 


132        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

forward,  as  experience  is  multiplied  by 
successive  incarnations,  the  mentality 
asserts  itself  and  finally  becomes  the 
center  in  which  he  lives,  mental  pleas- 
ures gradually  outweighing  the  physi- 
cal. Ultimately  spiritual  joys  will  rise 
triumphant  over  both;  but  for  a  long 
period  the  man  is  slowly  rising  from 
one  stage  to  the  other,  with  the  new 
and  higher  dawning  in  him  while  the 
old  and  lower  still  hold  him  firmly. 
When  he  comes  into  a  realization  of 
the  fact  that  he  can  work  intelligently 
with  nature  in  hastening  his  own  evo- 
lution, and  turns  his  attention  to  a  defi- 
nite method  of  doing  it,  he  enters  into 
a  contest  with  his  lower  nature,  the 
duration  of  which  is  dependent  upon 
his  earnestness  no  less  than  upon  his 
will  power. 

At  the  point  where  the  aspirant  for 
higher  things  awakes  to  the  fact  that 
the  old  life  of  sensation  is  an  undesir- 
able slavery,  realizes  dimly  that  some- 


Purity  133 

thing  better  lies  above  and  beyond  it, 
and  resolves  to  attain  it,  he  is  likely  to 
be  surprised  at  the  strength  of  the  old 
fetters  which  hold  him  back.  There 
are  certain  appetites  that  he  would 
gladly  be  rid  of  but  they  assert  them- 
selves at  intervals  with  astonishing 
vigor.  There  are  passions  he  thought 
dead  which  he  finds  were  only  sleep- 
ing. There  are  impulses  he  believed 
were  under  control  but  they  flash  out 
without  the  slightest  warning  and 
throw  him  off  his  balance.  There  are 
certain  classes  of  undesirable  thoughts 
that  he  hoped  to  have  done  with  for- 
ever but  they  leap  into  his  mind  in 
spite  of  him. 

Why  is  it  that  with  the  perfectly 
pure  motive  of  rising  above  the  lower 
nature,  with  the  sincere  desire  for  a 
loftier  life,  and  with  an  earnest  effort 
to  achieve  it,  we  do  not  promptly  suc- 
ceed ?  When  we  intellectually  compre- 
hend that  the  change  is  necessary  to 


134       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

our  happiness,  and  most  devoutly  de- 
sire its  consummation,  why  is  a  pro- 
longed struggle  necessary  to  accomplish 
it?  Because  the  difficulty  is  not  in  our- 
selves at  all  but  in  the  bodies  we  live 
in.  The  self  has  resolved  upon  the 
higher  life.  The  ego  has  succeeded 
in  impressing  the  waking  consciousness 
— in  arousing  a  longing  to  escape  from 
the  thraldom  of  the  lower  nature.  But 
the  bodies  are  to  be  reckoned  with  and 
they  cannot  be  changed  in  a  day.  They 
are  the  seat  of  what  is  commonly  called 
"sin," — the  fortress  of  the  lower  na-^ 
ture;  and  that  fortress  cannot  be  car- 
ried by  assault.  It  can  be  taken  only 
by  siege. 

The  progress  of  purification  is  a 
process  of  changing  the  matter  that 
composes  the  physical  body  and  its  in- 
visible counterparts,  as  actually  and  lit- 
erally as  one  would  reconstruct  a  house, 
making  it  into  a  totally  different  habi- 
tation. The  verv  desire  to  attain  the 


Purity  135 

higher  life  begins  the  reconstruction. 
But  just  as  one  could  not  instantly 
raze  his  house  and  as  instantly  rebuild 
it,  but  could  effect  any  desired  change 
by  taking  the  necessary  time,  so  any 
change  that  we  are  capable  of  imagin- 
ing can  be  made  in  ourselves  within  a 
reasonable  period.  We  cannot  unbuild 
in  a  few  days  what  we  have  been  so 
long  in  building.  Our  battle  is  against 
the  automatism  that  we  have  created. 
The  matter  of  the  astral  body  has  long 
been  accustomed  to  act  in  a  certain 
way  under  certain  circumstances  and 
it  continues  to  do  it,  for  a  time,  in  spite 
of  all  our  genuine  desires  to  the  con- 
trary. If  a  man  has  long  given  way  to 
great  anger  on  slight  provocation,  and 
resolves  to  do  so  no  more,  his  good 
resolution  will  help  a  little  toward  his 
some-time  self-mastery;  but  when  the 
good  resolution  is  followed  by  sudden 
and  unexpected  provocation  the  astral 
body  responds  before  he  is  aware  what 


136       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

is  happening.  So,  too,  with  the  mental 
body.  However  much  he  may  desire 
to  be  pure  in  mind  an  impure  thought 
that  has  often  been  harbored  in  the 
past  will  flash  in  when  some  connecting 
thought  or  old  association  opens  up 
the  way.  Of  course  the  astral  and 
mental  bodies  work  together,  desire 
and  thought  being  inextricably  mingled 
and  interwoven,  and  the  purification  of 
both  goes  forward  together. 

While  the  purification  of  the  lower 
nature  is  not  an  instantaneous  process 
and  is  likely  to  be  attended  with  some 
temporary  failures  in  the  efforts  to  live 
up  to  one's  ideal,  the  final  triumph 
is  certain  if  there  is  reasonable  persist- 
ence and  earnestness,  together  with 
some  knowledge  of  how  to  proceed. 
There  should  be  no  feeling  of  an  ef- 
fort to  escape  from  something  unde- 
sirable and  degrading.  The  mind 
should  not  be  turned  in  that  direction 
at  all.  It  should  be  kept  busy  in  the 


Purity  137 

opposite  direction — should  be  occupied 
with  pure  and  lofty  thinking.  There 
should  be  no  mental  effort  to  crush 
out  the  old  order  of  things.  Let  it 
be  crowded  out  by  thoughts  of  the  op- 
posite nature.  To  set  the  mind  deter- 
minedly against  a  certain  objectionable 
thing  is  only  to  give  that  thing  new 
vitality  and  invite  it  to  battle.  Non- 
resistance  has  its  value  here  as  else- 
where. "Let  sleeping  dogs  lie." 

Another  helpful  thing  to  remember 
is  that  association  and  environment  are 
important  factors.  Suppose  a  man  is 
trying  to  overcome  a  certain  thing — 
the  desire  for  liquor  or  tobacco,  or 
meat;  and  what  is  true  of  these  will 
apply  to  all  other  desires  of  the  lower 
nature.  He  may  escape  them  for  a 
time  and  almost  believe  that  they  are 
dead  when  some  old  association  will 
arouse  them  again.  Environment  is  a 
thing  to  be  taken  into  account.  Until 
one  has  grown  strong  enough  to  touch 


138       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

elbows  with  old  temptations  and  re- 
main absolutely  unmoved  it  is  wise  to 
keep  as  far  from  them  as  possible. 
A  man  who  is  fighting  the  drink  habit 
need  not  increase  his  difficulties  by  liv- 
ing next  door  to  a  bar.  One  who  is 
trying  to  purify  the  mind  can  keep 
away  from  certain  classes  of  much  ad- 
vertised plays  in  which  the  public  de- 
sire for  the  salacious  is  gratified  under 
the  mask  of  dramatic  art  of  a  high 
order.  It  is  remarkable  what  vitality 
the  desires  of  the  lower  nature  have, 
how  tenaciously  they  cling  and  how 
subtly  they  masquerade  in  attractive 
disguises.  Art  is  invoked  to  refine 
them  and  wit  is  used  to  adorn  them 
and  keep  them  alive  in  clever  song 
and  apt  story. 

Every  person  has  his  varying  moods. 
There  are  times  when  we  feel  spiritu- 
ally very  strong  and  easily  dominate 
the  lower  nature.  But  there  are  other 
times  when  materiality  rises  against 


Purity  139 

us  in  its  might  and  we  feel  the  very 
near  danger  of  losing  our  balance  and 
being  swept  from  our  footing  in  the 
tide  of  reaction.  In  such  moments  of 
peril  a  definite  course  of  action  is  use- 
ful. The  Christian  prays,  which  draws 
his  mind  away  from  lower  things  to 
the  higher.  The  occultist  can  think 
steadily  of  the  Masters  of  Compassion, 
even  of  the  Christ,  all  of  whom  he  re- 
gards as  embodying  all  that  is  pure  and 
exalted.  He  can  remind  himself  of 
the  too-often  forgotten  fact  that  his 
efforts  are  known  and  observed  and 
that  he  does  not  strive  after  purity 
unaided. 

To  succeed  well  in  dominating  the 
lower  nature  the  danger  of  permitting 
the  mind  to  turn  for  even  a  moment  to 
impure  thoughts  and  things  should  be 
well  understood.  Any  sort  of  dallying 
is  fatal  and  safety  lies  only  in  turning 
the  mind  instantly  in  the  other  direc- 
tion when  the  old  thoughts  and  im- 


140       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

pulses  crowd  upon  us.  This  is  repeat- 
edly emphasized  in  such  invaluable  oc- 
cult works  as  The  Voice  of  the  Silence. 

"Strive  with  thy  thoughts  unclean  before 
they  overpower  thee.  *  *  Beware,  disci- 
ple, suffer  not  e'en  though  it  be  their  shadow 
to  approach." 

And  again: 

' '  One  single  thought  about  the  past  that  thou 
hast  left  behind  will  drag  thee  down,  and  thou 
wilt  have  to  start  the  climb  anew." 

To  be  pure  is  to  be  strong.  Purity 
and  spiritual  strength  are  inseparable. 
There  can  be  no  real  strength  without 
purity;  not  even  mental  strength.  In 
proportion  that  the  lower  nature  domi- 
nates a  man's  life  he  is  both  physically 
and  mentally  weak,  as  well  as  morally 
weak.  The  physical,  mental  and  moral 
are  so  inextricably  interwoven  that 
each  necessarily  reacts  upon  the  others. 
None  of  them  can  stand  alone  because 
they  are  really  a  blended  whole,  gain- 


Purity  141 

ing  or  losing  together.  There  must  be 
purity  and  strength  for  all  or  for  none. 
Purity,  then,  is  literally  the  way  to 
strength,  to  power,  to  illumination  and 
to  immortality. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

TRUTHFULNESS 

Truthfulness,  like  purity,  is  one  of 
the  absolute  essentials  to  occult  prog- 
ress. Whoever  would  know  the  truth 
must  be  truthful.  We  cannot  compre- 
hend reality  until  we  are,  ourselves, 
sound  and  true  and  genuine  to  the 
heart's  center. 

The  average  man  of  the  world  little 
realizes  the  extent  of  his  falsity.  He 
thinks  falsely,  acts  falsely  and  speaks 
falsely,  with  little  thought  that  he  is 
doing  anything  wrong.  He  habitually 
represents  himself  to  be  different  from 
what  he  really  is.  He  always  tries  to 
give  the  impression  that  he  is  better 
than  he  knows  himself  to  be.  His  life 
among  others  is  a  perpetual  masquer- 
ade. To  prevent  others  knowing  the 


Truthfulness  143 

truth  about  him  he  cheerfully  lies 
whenever  he  thinks  it  necessary  as  a 
part  of  the  program  of  concealment. 
He  acts  as  well  as  talks  in  a  way  cal- 
culated to  mislead  people,  and  bring 
them  to  erroneous  conclusions  about 
him  and  his  affairs.  It  never  occurs 
to  him  that  he  should,  under  any  cir- 
cumstances, admit  that  he  has  been  in 
the  wrong  or  even  that  he  has  made 
an  error  of  judgment.  If  his  quarrel 
with  another  has  become  known  he 
takes  great  pains  to  show  that  it  was 
entirely  the  fault  of  his  enemy.  If  he 
has  circulated  a  story  detrimental  to 
another,  and  later  finds  it  to  be  untrue, 
instead  of  setting  it  right,  as  far  as 
he  can,  he  too  often  thinks  only  of 
justifying  his  criticism  by  trying  to 
find  some  other  damaging  facts  about 
his  victim  to  help  show  the  probability, 
at  least,  of  his  first  statement  being 
reasonable!  In  any  event  he  will  not 
permit  anybody  to  think  that  he  is  in 


144       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

any  way  to  blame  for  any  trouble  that 
exists,  and  whenever  he  is  connected 
with  any  controversy  or  difficulty  with 
others  he  insists  upon  ignoring  that  ax- 
iom of  nature  that  there  are  always 
two  sides  to  every  question.  He  fully 
believes  that  in  thus  getting  credit  for 
being  a  better  man  than  he  actually 
is — a  person  without  fault  or  frailty — 
he  is  promoting  his  own  welfare;  and 
i  f  somebody  should  suggest  to  him  that 
his  truest  self-interest  could  be  better 
served  by  being  perfectly  candid  and 
truthful  even  about  himself,  he  would 
probably  think  it  very  foolish  advice. 
Just  like  the  man,  with  a  different  kind 
of  moral  weakness,  who  steals  an- 
other's money,  he  feels  certain  that  he 
is  "getting  the  best  of  it,"  and  that 
the  saying  "honesty  is  the  best  policy" 
is  only  a  maxim  for  fools  instead  of  a 
literal  fact  in  nature.  It  has  never  oc- 
curred to  him  that  in  deceiving  others 
he  is  bandaging  his  own  eyes,  blunting 


Truthfulness  145 

his  own  perceptions,  dulling  his  own 
intuition,  and  that  in  masking  himself 
he  is  placing  a  mask  over  those  very 
truths  of  nature  which  are  a  necessity 
to.  his  higher  development.  It  is  true 
that  he  may  lead  others  to  believe  him 
a  better  man  than  he  is  and  that  for 
a  little  span  he  may  strut  in  his  disguise 
of  false-righteousness;  but  he  pays  a 
fool's  price  for  the  vain  folly  and  the 
law  of  adjustment,  whether  in  this 
incarnation  or  another,  will  finally 
bring  him  the  bitter  humiliation  neces- 
sary to  arouse  him  from  his  false  atti- 
tude toward  life.  His  account  of  van- 
ity and  humility  will  finally  balance 
and  cancel  itself  and  he  will  awake  to 
the  fact  that  his  foolish  untruth  fulness 
has  cost  him  dearly — that  it  has  re- 
tarded his  progress  in  a  way  that  is 
worse  than  merely  to  have  remained 
ignorant  of  nature's  choicest  wisdom, 
though  that  in  itself  is  misfortune 
enough. 


146        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

One  of  the  things  that  first  impresses 
those  fortunate  enough  to  come  into 
touch  with  teachers  of  occultism  who 
are  direct  pupils  of  the  Masters  of  Wis- 
dom is  their  painstaking  precautions 
to  prevent  anybody  getting  from  them 
a  wrong  idea  about  the  facts  as  they 
are.  Thus  intense  is  the  feeling  of  re- 
sponsibility on  the  part  of  those  who 
know  the  occult  results  of  the  slightest 
misleading  of  others.  The  informed 
occultist  instead  of  ever  trying  to 
make  himself  appear  before  the  world 
better  than  he  is,  in  any  trouble  with 
which  he  might  be  connected,  does  not 
beyond  merely  declaring  the  fact  of 
his  innocence  attempt  to  defend  him- 
self even  when  entirely  blameless.  He 
knows  perfectly  well  that  what  people 
think  him  to  be  just  now  is  of  extreme- 
ly small  importance,  while  what  he  re- 
ally is  is  of  transcendent  consequence. 
He  will  set  right  any  erroneous  impres- 
sion if  he  can  without  augmenting  the 


Truthfulness  147 

trouble,  but  not  for  the  good  opinion 
and  the  applause  of  the  whole  world 
would  he  say  or  do  anything  that  would 
be  the  slightest  misrepresentation  of 
the  truth.  The  more  one  knows  about 
occultism  the  more  scrupulously  ac- 
curate he  must  necessarily  become  in 
the  minutest  degree  about  the  most 
trivial  things,  for  he  has  learned  that 
only  as  he  lives  truth  shall  he  know  it. 
Somebody  has  invented  the  con- 
venient and  comforting  phrase,  "a 
white  lie."  But  occultism  knows  no 
white  lies.  It  is  quite  color  blind  on 
the  subject  of  falsehood.  The  essence 
of  untruth  fulness  is  deception  and  de- 
ception is  unjustifiable.  The  manner 
of  accomplishing  the  deception  is 
wholly  immaterial.  It  may  be  only  by  a 
smile  or  a  facial  expression  of  surprise, 
but  if  it  misleads  it  is  no  less  a  lie  than 
if  plainly  put  in  words.  Of  course  there 
are  impertinent  persons  who  take  the 
liberty  of  interrogating  people  about 


148       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

things  which  are  none  of  their  business, 
but  the  victim  of  their  inquisitiveness 
is  under  no  obligation  to  satisfy  their 
curiosity ;  still  less  to  take  upon  himself 
the  misfortune  of  mis-statement  in  or- 
der to  prevent  them  learning  facts  they 
have  no  right  to  know.  There  are 
times  when  absolute  silence  is  com- 
mendable, when  one  is  justified  in  dis- 
regarding a  direct  question  and  declin- 
ing to  utter  a  word  on  the  subject. 

Putting  aside  the  more  obvious 
forms  of  falsification,  that  scarcely  re- 
quire comment,  there  remains  that 
which  is  the  more  dangerous  just  be- 
cause it  is  less  pronounced  and  is  veiled 
under  the  conventionalities  of  polite 
usage.  How  easy  it  is  to  indulge  the 
pernicious  habit  of  flattering  another 
and  saying  falsely  pleasant  things  about 
him  in  order  to  be  agreeable  and  to 
make  him  friendly!  We  praise  his 
song  or  his  essay  extravagantly  when 
we  know  well  enough  that  it  was  only 


Truthfulness  149 

ordinarily  good ;  and  in  doing  that  we 
cultivate  his  vanity,  if  he  has  that  very 
common  weakness,  and  lead  him  to 
place  a  false  valuation  upon  his  accom- 
plishments and  perhaps  to  foolishly  at- 
tempt something  for  which  he  is  not 
competent.  We  often  excuse  our  in- 
clination to  flatter  with  the  thought 
that  it  is  well  to  stimulate  others.  The 
truth  is  that  it  would  be  much  kinder 
to  gently  criticise  our  friend's  work 
and  help  him  to  appear  to  better  advan- 
tage in  the  future  instead  of  to  worse. 
The  truth  cannot  do  him  harm  if  it  is 
tempered  with  real  sympathy  and  we 
are  prompted  by  a  genuine  desire  to 
help  instead  of  to  please. 

Our  daily  social  life,  also,  is  full  of 
false  standards  and  is  narrowed  and 
bemeaned  with  petty  deceptions ;  and  of 
course  it  is  as  useless  as  it  is  false  and 
hollow.  Nothing  can  be  worth  while 
that  does  not  in  some  way  promote 
the  welfare  of  people  or  living  things. 


150       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

The  person  who  would  find  a  satisfac- 
tory life  must  have  his  every  thought 
and  act  ring  true  to  the  genuine  in  hu- 
man nature.  He  must  acquire  again 
the  candor  and  truthfulness  of  child- 
hood and  cultivate  his  sympathy  to  the 
point  that  prevents  such  candor  being 
harsh  and  brutal.  He  must  continually 
guard  his  thoughts,  his  speech  and  his 
acts  to  see  that  no  shadow  of  untruth- 
fulness  is  in  any  of  them.  Only  he 
who  can  live  a  perfectly  open,  candid 
life  with  no  motive  disguised,  no  action 
cloaked  and  no  thought  concealed,  may 
hope  to  reach  the  very  heart  of  nature's 
wisdom  and  comprehend  it 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

FEARLESSNESS 

Fearlessness  is  something  more  than 
courage.  A  man  whom  we  call  cour- 
ageous may  be  very  far  from  fearless. 
A  recruit  going  onto  the  battle-field  for 
the  first  time,  white-faced  but  deter- 
mined, is  called  a  man  of  courage. 
Wellington  is  said  to  have  remarked 
as  a  young  soldier  passed  him  to  the 
front,  pale,  trembling  but  resolute: 
"There  goes  a  brave  man;  he  realizes 
the  danger,  but  unhesitatingly  faces  it." 
A  man  may  have  the  courage  to  move 
toward  a  known  danger,  even  to  risk 
his  life  where  there  is  a  strong  proba- 
bility of  losing  it,  and  yet  be  by  no 
means  fearless.  Perfect  freedom  from 
fear  marks  a  high  state  of  develop- 
ment and  indicates  great  knowledge; 


152       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

for,   as  a  matter  of  fact,   fear  arises 
from  ignorance. 

Chiefly  because  ignorance  is  the 
parent  of  fear,  a  man  who  is  coura- 
geous in  one  thing  is  sometimes  an  ab- 
ject coward  in  another.  He  may  face 
death  a  hundred  times  and  come  to 
be  quite  unconcerned  about  bullets  and 
shells,  and  yet  he  could  not  be  induced 
to  spend  a  night  alone  in  a  graveyard. 
A  French  king  who  died  upon  the  scaf- 
fold with  such  calm  courage  and  dig- 
nity as  to  arouse  general  admiration 
had  been  so  lacking  in  a  different  kind 
of  firmness  as  to  hasten  his  own  down- 
fall. On  the  other  hand,  a  notorious 
outlaw  of  the  early  California  days 
who  was  celebrated  for  his  daring, 
who  had  killed  many  people  in  the 
various  raids  and  robberies  of  his  band, 
and  who  seemed  to  risk  his  life  as  reck- 
lessly as  though  he  were  a  total  strang- 
er to  fear,  nevertheless  died  in  abject 
terror  when  he  was  finally  caught  and 


Fearlessness  153| 

hanged  by  the  vigilantes.  Some  men, 
courageous  in  other  matters,  are  filled 
with  fear  by  the  sight  of  a  harmless 
snake.  Others  would  on  no  account 
be  present  at  a  materializing  seance, 
while  it  would  be  extremely  difficult  to 
induce  many  ordinarily  courageous  per- 
sons to  visit  alone  at  night  an  unoccu- 
pied house  which  was  alleged  to  be 
"haunted."  But  all  these  fears  would 
vanish  with  a  little  more  knowledge. 
The  graveyard  can  have  no  terror  for 
the  man  who  knows  that  the  dead 
physical  body  is  as  much  a  separate 
thing  from  the  dead  man  who  once 
lived  in  it  as  his  clothing  is  and  that 
a  cemetery  is  as  harmless  as  a  ward- 
robe. The  outlaw  about  to  be  deprived 
of  the  physical  life  he  had  forfeited 
to  the  outraged  public  would  not  have 
suddenly  turned  coward  had  he  not 
been  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  there 
is  really  no  death  and  that  while  he  was 
losing  his  physical  body  he  had  a  better 


154       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

one  left.  The  life  ahead  of  him  in 
the  astral  world  would  certainly  be  an 
undesirable  one;  but  what  probably 
filled  him  with  fear  was  the  possibility 
of  extinction.  The  man  who  is  afraid 
of  a  materialization,  or  a  ghost,  would 
quickly  regain  his  courage  if  he  un- 
derstood a  little  more  about  the  facts 
and  laws  of  the  invisible  world.  He 
would  not  run  from  a  wraith  if  he 
knew  it  was  but  a  temporary  aggrega- 
tion of  matter  as  harmless  as  a  puff  of 
smoke.  We  are  mightily  amused  at  a 
huge  elephant  going  into  a  paroxysm  of 
terror  at  sight  of  a  mouse;  but  it  is 
no  more  remarkable  than  the  many 
baseless  fears  of  human  beings  that 
arise  from  various  kinds  of  ignorance. 
The  action  of  fear  upon  the  physical 
body  is  interesting  and  instructive  and 
even  a  superficial  examination  of  it 
shows  that  it  is  extremely  detrimental 
in  its  effects,  while  courage  is  of  in- 
calculable value  to  a  person.  Sudden 


Fearlessness  155 

fear  contracts  the  heart,  impedes  the 
circulation  of  the  blood  and  leaves  the 
face  blanched  and  ashen.  We  are  not 
surprised  when  the  clairvoyant  tells  us 
that  the  color  in  which  this  emotion  ex- 
presses itself  is  gray.  It  is  quite  in 
keeping  with  what  we  know  of  its 
physical  effects.  The  emotion  of  fear 
appears  to  be  synonymous  with  con- 
traction. It  is  a  lessening  of  life,  and 
therefore  of  vitality — a  tendency  to- 
ward separation  from  the  source  of 
life.  Fear  is  the  ally  of  disease  and 
death.  It  is  destructive,  disintegrating. 
Every  physician  knows  this  from  ex- 
perience and  always  does  his  best  to 
keep  fear  from  the  mind  of  his  patient. 
He  knows  that  if  he  can  kindle  hope 
and  revive  courage  the  battle  is  more 
than  half  won. 

Because  fear  means  a  restriction  of 
the  life- forces,  a  process  of  life  con- 
traction instead  of  expansion,  it  is  in- 
imical to  soul  growth.  Only  in  the 


156        Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

atmosphere  of  serene  fearlessness  can 
the  inherent  divinity  come  to  perfect 
expression.  Any  kind  or  degree  of 
fear  is  an  enemy  of  growth  and  prog- 
ress; and  the  kinds  and  degrees  are 
many.  People  fear  poverty,  fear 
disease,  fear  old  age,  fear  accident,  fear 
possible  helplessness,  fear  loss  of  posi- 
tion, of  power,  of  social  standing, — 
fear  even  the  opinions  of  others  about 
them.  With  many  people  one  or  an- 
other, or  several,  of  these  things  gives 
rise  to  a  mental  condition  of  perpetual 
unrest.  Ignorance,  once  more,  is  the 
cause  of  all  such  fear.  The  difficulty 
is  in  the  failure  to  understand  facts —  - 
to  see  things  in  their  correct  relation- 
ship to  each  other  and  thus  to  realize 
the  harmlessness  of  things  which,  seen 
out  of  their  true  relationship,  are  fear 
inspiring.  A  man  is  afraid  of  a  harm- 
less wraith  because  he  erroneously  at- 
taches to  it  a  power  it  does  not  possess. 
Just  so  are  all  the  rest  of  his  fears 


Fearlessness  157 

groundless,  and  the  objects  of  them 
equally  powerless  to  injure  him,  except 
through  the  fear  he  permits  them  to 
inspire  in  him.  To  all  things  over 
which  he  worries  a  man  attaches  a 
wholly  imaginary  power  to  do  him  in- 
jury and  in  order  to  acquire  fearless- 
ness he  must  try  to  understand  nature's 
methods  of  evolution  and  to  compre- 
hend why  certain  unpleasant  experi- 
ences, such  as  the  unexpected  loss  of 
property,  accidents  on  sea  or  land, 
friendlessness  in  old  age,  etc,  come  to 
people.  He  must  come  into  an  under- 
standing of  three  things:  First,  that  no 
such  experiences  can  come  to  any  hu- 
man being  unless  that  person  has  him- 
self generated  the  causes  that  will  bring 
them;  second,  that  when  a  thing  is  in- 
evitable it  is  much  less  disastrous  if 
calmly  faced  than  if  met  with  paralyz- 
ing fear  that  renders  one  helpless ;  and 
third,  that  ill-fortune  has  a  lesson  to 
teach  that  is  of  more  real  value  to  a 


158       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

man  than  good  fortune  could  possibly 
have  been  in  its  stead — not  that  painful 
things  in  general  are  better  than  pleas- 
ant ones,  but  that  they  are  absolutely 
necessary  to  those  to  whom  they  come ; 
and  were  it  otherwise  they  would  not, 
and  could  not,  come  to  them.  A  pain 
in  a  boy's  stomach  is  not  better  than 
the  condition  of  perfect  health,  but  un- 
til he  learns  better  than  to  eat  green 
apples  that  pain  is  giving  him  a  lesson 
that  is  necessary  for  his  future  health 
and  safety.  If  a  thing  is  inevitable 
nothing  can  be  gained  by  frantically 
trying  to  escape  it;  and  if  it  has  a  les- 
son to  teach  that  will  enable  us  to 
avoid  greater  suffering  later  on,  it  is 
obviously  foolish  to  lament  it. 

A  wise  man  once  said  that  there 
are  two  classes  of  things  about  which 
he  refused  to  worry.  One  was  the 
things  he  could  not  help  and  the  other 
the  things  he  could.  It  is  quite  useless 
to  worry  about  the  one  and  unnecessary 


Fearlessness  159 

to  \vorry  about  the  other ;  and  so  a  little 
common  sense  puts  the  demon  of 
worry  entirely  out  of  court. 

But  there  is  something  more  to  be 
said  about  fear  than  that  it  arises  from 
ignorance,  for  its  root  is  in  an  igno- 
rance that  is  closely  associated  with 
selfishness.  "Perfect  love  casteth  out 
fear" ;  and  there  can  be  perfect  love 
only  where  there  is  absolute  unselfish- 
ness. The  man  who  reaches  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  actual  unity  of  all  life  has 
no  fear.  Fear  and  hatred  perish  to- 
gether. A  man  does  not  fear  himself. 
When  he  knows  that  he  is  one  with  all 
that  lives  he  can  have  neither  hatred 
nor  fear  of  anything  nor  can  anything 
have  fear  of  him.  The  devotee  of  the 
orient  prays  that  he  may  become  one 
who  is  afraid  of  nothing  and  of  whom 
nothing  is  afraid. 

The  "perfect  love  that  casteth  out 
fear"  also  casts  out  selfishness.  A  man 
is  no  longer  thinking  about  himself  but 


160       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

about  others.  Instead  of  worrying  for 
fear  he  will  be  friendless  and  helpless 
in  old  age  he  is  thinking  altogether 
about  how  he  can  help  those  who  are 
now  poor  and  friendless;  and  in  that 
very  forgetfuJness  of  himself  he  is 
creating  the  conditions  that  will  make 
his  own  old  age  rich  with  loyal  friend- 
ships. On  the  other  hand  a  man  who  is 
trying  to  accumulate  money  "to  pro- 
vide for  old  age"  may  permit  his  anxi- 
ety to  secure  plenty  of  it  to  lead  him 
into  the  very  things  that  will  make  a 
friendless  old  age  certain. 

The  thoughtful  student  of  cause  and 
effect,  as  they  operate  in  human  evolu- 
tion, will  not  be  misled  by  the  foolish 
idea  that  by  increasing  his  material 
possessions  he  can  protect  himself 
against  any  fate  he  has  earned ;  nor  will 
he  waste  time  worrying  about  blunders 
that  he  may  have  made  in  the  past  and 
the  resulting  unpleasantness  that  may 
still  be  ahead,  but  will  meet  the  inevi- 


Fearlessness  161 

table  serenely,  pondering  its  lessons 
when  it  comes,  getting  from  its  severity 
a  Spartan  strength  and  courage  and 
rejoicing  that  the  account  now  balanced 
is  done  with  forever.  To  live  in  fear 
of  what  may  be  ahead  of  us  as  the  life- 
plan  unfolds  is  only  to  increase  what- 
ever misfortune  may  come  and  to 
weaken  our  powers  of  resistance  at  the 
moment  when  they  are  most  needed. 

To  the  disciple  who  has  entered  fully 
into  the  spiritual  life  nothing  matters. 
He  has  reached  a  clear  understanding 
of  the  fact  that  a  superior  intelligence 
is  superintending  his  evolution  and  that 
all  the  events  of  this  life  and  his  future 
lives  will  be  adjusted  with  more  care- 
ful planning  for  his  welfare  than  that 
of  a  tutor  for  his  pupil  or  a  father  for 
his  son;  that  no  useless  lesson  will  be 
given  him,  that  no  unneeded  experience 
can  befall  him,  and  that  while  he  may 
not  understand  all  the  events  in  a  pro- 
gram so  far-reaching  that  it  includes 


162       Hints  to  Students  of  Occultism 

his  evolution  on  planes  of  the  universe 
of  which  he  is  wholly  ignorant  in  his 
waking  consciousness,  he  has  no  more 
to  fear  from  it  than  an  infant  has  in 
the  arms  of  its  loving  mother.  When 
this  view  of  evolution  is  fully  compre- 
hended one  reaches  a  mental  condition 
that  is  higher  than  courage, — the  con- 
dition that  can  properly  be  called  fear- 
lessness. It  is  not  the  state  in  which 
the  will  is  called  upon  to  enable  one 
to  resolutely  face  danger  or  death.  It 
is  rather  the  state  of  consciousness  that, 
realizing  there  is  neither  danger  ncr 
death  and  that  all  things  are  well  with 
the  soul,  looks  fearless  and  unafraid 
upon  any  change  that  can  come. 


THEOSOPHICAL  LECTURES 

By  L.  W.  ROGERS 
"Scientific  Evidence  of  Future  Life" 

On  some  of  the  scientific  and  historic  facts  indicating 
the  existence  of  an  unseen  world  and  a  future  life. 

"The  Invisible  World  About  Us" 

On  the  unseen  regions  of  the  universe  and  the  con- 
ditions of  life  after  bodily  death. 

"Reincarnation  From  the  Scientific  View- 
point" 

On  some  of  the  natural  laws,  and  the  facts  of  life, 
which  show  that  reincarnation  is  a  necessary  factor  in 
evolution. 

"The  Logic  of  Reincarnation" 

On  the  reasonableness  of  this  hypothesis  of  human 
evolution. 

"Beyond  the  Border" 

On  clairvoyance,  premonitions  and  other  super- 
physical  phenomena. 

"Karma:    Nature's  Law  of  Justice" 

On  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  as  operating  in  the 
affairs  of  daily  life. 

"Soul  Powers  and  Possibilities" 

On  some  of  the  methods  of  nature  in  evolving  latent 
faculties. 

"Universal  Brotherhood" 

On  the  relationship  of  human  beings  to  each  other, 
and  to  the  animal  kingdom. 

"Occultism  as  a  Factor  in  Civilization" 

On  the  question  "Why  are  countries  where  occultism 
is  generally  accepted  behind  us  in  civilization?"  Show- 
ing why  they  are  not. 

"The  Hidden  Side  of  Evolution" 

On  the  necessity  for  a  guiding  intelligence  in  evolu- 
tion back  of  "natural  selection,"  and  the  reasonableness 
of  the  existence  of  a  spiritual  hierarchy. 

"The  Life  Sublime" 

On  the  possibility  of  shaping  the  ordinary  life  by 
the  principles  that  have  guided  the  lives  of  the  most 
exalted  souls. 

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ALL  of  the  above  12  Pamphlets  to  one  address  for  $1.00. 

Small  sums  can  be  sent  in  U.  S.  postage  stamps. 
Free  catalogue  of  Theosophical  Literature  upon  ap- 
plication.    Address. 

THE  THEOSOPHICAL  BOOK  CO. 
Los  Angeles,  California 


THE  OCCULTISM  IN  THE 
SHAKESPEARE  PLAYS 

By  L.  W.  ROGERS 


Most  readers  pass  over  even  the  obvious  occultism 
in  the  Shakespeare  plays  with  but  little  thought  on  the 
subject  and  lightly  dismiss  the  matter  with  the  belief 
that  the  great  dramatist  was  giving  rather  free  rein  to 
his  imagination.  The  fact  is  that  in  these  plays  we  are 
given  a  truthful  arid  accurate  picture  of  the  invisible 
world,  and  a  most  realistic  description  of  the  fact  that 
human  passions  and  emotions  survive  the  .death  of  the 
physical  body  and  continue  to  play  a  part  in  the  visible 
world. 

The  plays  dealt  with  are  Hamlet,  Macbeth,  Richard 
III.,  Julius  Caesar,  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  and 
The  Tempest;  and  the  phenomena  in  them  includes 
clairvoyance,  premonitions,  foreknowledge  of  coming 
death,  accurate  prophecy  of  future  events,  the  return 
of  the  dead,  ceremonial  magic,  etc.  The  author  declares 
of  the  dramatist's  great  work  that  "what  is  its  supersti- 
tion to  this  generati9n  will  be  its  science  to  the  next." 

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SELF  DEVELOPMENT  AND 
THE  WAY  TO  POWER 

By  L.  W.  ROGERS 


How  can  we  develop  the  latent  powers  within  us? 
What  is  the  method  by  which  spiritual  illumination  can 
be  reached?  What  are  the  laws  governing  soul  growth? 
These  are  the  oft-repeated  questions  that  are  dealt 
with  by  the  author,  who  takes  up  in  detail  the  qualifi- 
cations required  for  occult  development  and  spiritual 
progress.  He  specifically  points  out  the  three  vital 
necessities  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  all  occult 
unfoldment  and  the  means  by  which,  if  one  does  not 
possess  them,  they  may  be  evolved.  Not  only  the 
qualifications  needed  but  the  methods  to  be  followed 
are  considered  in  detail.  Uniform  in  style  with  "The 
Occultism  in  the  Shakespeare  Plays."  Price  asc, 
postage  free. 

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